尚·杜布菲

Cordier & Ekstrom, New York

Private Collection, Missouri

Sale: Christie's, New York, Impressionist and Modern Paintings and Sculpture (Part I), 15 May 1985, Lot 61

Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

St Louis, City Art Museum, Highlights from the Collection of the Fogg Museum and Harvard Alumni of St Louis, 1964, no. 72

St Louis, City Art Museum, Jean Dubuffet at the Museum of Modern Art, 1970

Chicago, David and Alfred Smart Gallery, University of Chicago; St Louis, Washington University Gallery of Art, Jean Dubuffet: Forty Years of His Art, 1984-85, p. 81, no. 62, illustrated

New York, Wildenstein Gallery, Jean Dubuffet: A Retrospective 1943 - 1974, 1987

New York, Nassau County Musum of Art, Master Artworks from Private Collections, 2005

Max Loreau, Catalogue des Travaux de Jean Dubuffet, fasc. XIX: Paris Circus, Paris 1980, p. 122, no. 236, illustrated

Mildred Glimcher, Jean Dubuffet: Towards an Alternative Reality, New York 1987, p. 190, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although they fail to fully convey the rich impastoed surface of the original. The overall tonality is also deeper and richer with less saturated colours, notably the reds. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Very close inspection reveals short, isolated drying cracks to some of the thicker areas of impastoed paint. When unframed, there is evidence of frame rubbing with wear to the canvas in the lower right corner tip and in several places to the extreme top edge. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultraviolet light.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Bursting with vibrancy, Jacasse presents one of the most accomplished portraits from Jean Dubuffet’s highly esteemed and consequential series, Paris Circus. Beautifully composed through a deep and expressive role of colour and a faultless display of decisive and heavily impastoed brushwork, the present work is charged with psychological and emotional expression that was inspired by the frenetic heartbeat of urban commotion which Dubuffet witnessed on his return to Paris in 1961.

In 1955 Dubuffet had abandoned the war-scarred and melancholic French capital to take a house in Vence in the South of France. During this period, and, exemplified by the Texturologies and Materiologies series, Dubuffet shunned any sense of human presence from his work and nature became the primary source of his investigations. As a direct response to this remoteness of rural life, and in contrast to his exploration of the tactile qualities of materials- there was a change in Dubuffet’s work that marked a completely new departure when he returned. There, he found a city completely unlike the one he had left; optimism and cosmopolitan bustle had replaced the gloom and despondency that had formerly prevailed under German occupation. This new vibrant atmosphere was intoxicating for Dubuffet and had an immediate and explosive effect on his work, which culminated in the exuberant Paris Circus pictures. City life itself; bustling streets, crowded restaurants, window displays and advertising boards, came to dominate his paintings. Where Dubuffet had previously celebrated natural life on a small intimate scale, he now celebrated the energy of the Paris bustling boulevards on a grand scale.

The later pictures of the Paris Circus, like Jacasse, employ less specific references to Paris. There are fewer urban scenes and fewer landscapes, and more focus on the individuals that resided in the city. The isolated, solitary figure in the painting of Jacasse, marks the beginning of a series of works in which there is no longer any discernable location of where the figure is placed. Yet by entitling the present work ‘Jacasse’ – the French for ‘chatter’ – Dubuffet invokes the exultant nature of an animated Parisian, whose positive outlook resonated throughout the city. Jacasse employs a radical handling of colour that had been absent from Dubuffet’s earlier work. At the beginning of his career, he favoured an earthy tonality. Here, and synonymous with the Paris Circus series, Dubuffet renders his subject with a spontaneous, immediate and broad palette. Characteristic layers of paint in subtle mutations of blues, reds and whites elevate the figure to an imposing presence within the composition. Decisive accents of purple and orange highlight Dubuffet’s employment of this sumptuous palette, infusing the caricature-like figure with its own psychological presence and personal identity.

The extraordinary palette and loosening form of Jacasse suggests a shift away from the rugged, earthy quality of his earlier works, and further towards a more decorative impulse inspired by his surrounding urban landscape. The agitated line and heavy impasto here indicate an impulsiveness and directness that is in keeping with the movement of Art Brut with which Dubuffet is so commonly associated. The flattened perspectival plane and compressed distance are both compositional devices suggestive of naïve children's art and most importantly the raw vision of psychotic art that so vitally informed Dubuffet's oeuvre. Categorically opposed to 'cultivated' art taught in schools and museums, Dubuffet denounced the selective character of official culture and traditional methods, seeking a raw truth in his characters.

The immediate force and vigour of execution felt with Jacasse demonstrates Dubuffet's intimate psychological response to the city and its inhabitants that stood before him. In this supreme painting we bear witness to Dubuffet’s masterful handling of paint application and structural composition presenting “not only a gripping visual programme but also the heightened effect of painterly impulses and autonomous values” (Andreas Franzke cited in: Exhibition Catalogue, Salzburg, Museum de Moderne, Jean Dubuffet, 2004, p. 162).