Jean Dubuffet
Head with Strong Chin1951

On view:

Broad Contemporary Art Museum, floor 3

Artist or Maker: Jean Dubuffet
France, 1901-1985
Title: Head with Strong Chin
Place Made: France
Date Made: 1951
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 37 × 32 × 2 in. (93.98 × 81.28 × 5.08 cm)
Credit Line: David E. Bright Bequest
Accession Number: M.67.25.19
Classification: Paintings
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. Parallel Visions: Modern Artists and Outsider Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1992
Tuchman, Maurice, and Carol S. Eliel. Visiones Paralelas: Artistas Modernos y Arte Marginal. Madrid: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 1993.
Copyright: © Jean Dubuffet / Artists Rights Society (ARS) New York / ADAGP, Paris

On view:

Broad Contemporary Art Museum, floor 3

Artist or Maker: Jean Dubuffet
France, 1901-1985
Title: Head with Strong Chin
Place Made: France
Date Made: 1951
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 37 × 32 × 2 in. (93.98 × 81.28 × 5.08 cm)
Credit Line: David E. Bright Bequest
Accession Number: M.67.25.19
Classification: Paintings
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. Parallel Visions: Modern Artists and Outsider Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1992
Tuchman, Maurice, and Carol S. Eliel. Visiones Paralelas: Artistas Modernos y Arte Marginal. Madrid: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 1993.