- Title
- Head with Strong Chin
- Date Made
- 1951
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 37 × 32 × 2 in. (93.98 × 81.28 × 5.08 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.67.25.19
- Collecting Area
- Modern Art
- Curatorial Notes
Jean Dubuffet was the founder of art brut (“raw art”), a postwar movement premised on the idea that the most truthful, arresting art is made by individuals at the periphery of society and non-professionals such as children, prisoners, and psychiatric patients allegedly unburdened by cultural conventions and norms. Dubuffet’s compositions are thus distinguished by intentionally rudimentary lines, blocky, child-like figures, and a coarse application of paint. Here, the head seems almost too big for the canvas, pushing up against the top edge, while its simplified facial features float on boulder-like contours.
Wall label, 2021.
- Selected Bibliography
- Tuchman, Maurice, and Carol S. Eliel. Visiones Paralelas: Artistas Modernos y Arte Marginal. Madrid: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 1993.
