Online Art Gallery

Faribolus and Perceval
Jean Dubuffet, (1901-1986, French)
Faribolus, 1973-1982
Epoxy painted polyurethane, stainless steel armature (126" x 82" x 44")

Gift of the Humana Foundation

Perceval, 1973-1982
Epoxy painted polyurethane, stainless steel armature (119" x 82" x 44")

Gift of Mrs. W. L. Lyons Brown, Sr.

Jean Dubuffet first came to wide attention in the years immediately following World War II. From then until his death, he remained one of the 20th century's most prolific and inventive artists.

Dubuffet always fought against the pretensions of a too-cultured society, advocated seeing in a new way and celebrated the beauty of the ordinary and the banal. Following in the footsteps of Miro, Dubuffet came to believe that children's art, as well as the art of the insane, was the truest manifestation of the creative urge and the most direct expression of man's unity with nature. Dubuffet declared that his work was "an attempt to bring all disparaged values into the limelight."

In 1962, Dubuffet began to make his "Hourloupes." Inspired by a set of doodles in red ballpoint executed while talking on the phone, the Hourloupes present jigsaw puzzle figures whose outlined parts seem part of an anatomy that never quite fits together. Explaining the separateness of his imaginative creations from the real works, Dubuffet explained, "Many artists begin with a pig and make sausages. I begin with sausages and make a pig." Perceval and Faribolus are typical Hourloupes in there skewed, disjointed stance, and their boisterous, antic behavior.