Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985)

Cycliste nue

Details
Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985)
Dubuffet, J.
Cycliste nue
signed and dated 'J Dubuffet 28 VII 44' (lower right)
gouache, pen and black ink on paper
12 x 9 in. (32.5 x 24.7 cm.)
Painted on 28 July 1944
Provenance
Alex Maguy (Galerie de l'Elyse), Paris.
Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Maremont, Winnetka, Illinois (acquired from the above).
B.C. Holland Gallery, Chicago.
Daniel Varenne, Geneva.
Morris Pinto, New York.
Daniel Varenne, Geneva.
Donald Morris Gallery, Inc., Birmingham, Michigan (acquired from the above).
Acquired from the above by the present owners on 3 February 1984.
Literature
M. Loreau, ed., Catalogue des travaux de Jean Dubuffet, Lausanne, 1966 (Fascicule I: Marionnettes de la ville et de la campagne), no. 316 (illustrated, p. 167).
A. Franzke, Dubuffet, New York, 1981, p. 22 (illustrated in color, p. 25).
Exhibited
New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and Paris, Grand Palais (no. 45), Jean Dubuffet: A Retrospective, April-December 1973, no. 150 (illustrated, p. 183).
Berlin, Academie der Knste; Vienna, Museum Moderner Kunst, and Cologne, Josef-Haubrich-Kunsthalle, Dubuffet Retrospecktive, September 1980-March 1981, p. 306, no. 32 (illustrated,
p. 41).
Birmingham, Michigan, Donald Morris Gallery, Inc., Jean Dubuffet, Two Decades: 1943-1962, November-December 1983, no. 3 (illustrated in color, p. 8).

Lot Essay

Cyclist nue was inspired by a bicycling trip that Jean Dubuffet and his wife took in July 1943 in the south of France. Prime examples of how Dubuffet's personal experiences provided fertile ground for his artistic navigation, the gouaches and drawings that he produced during his cycling holiday lent both iconographic and stylistic motifs to later oil paintings.

In the present work, seemingly oblivious of her nudity, the rider approaches the viewer with a direct and frank gaze. Barely contained within the confines of the picture, she fills the entire compositional space, creating an effect of compression. In addition, the destination of her ride is not indicated. Dubuffet rendered the figure and bicycle schematically in black paint and went over them with smudges of white, gray and red. Furthermore, he collapsed the division of figure and ground so that the two elements exist on the same plane. The mottled texture of the green, blue, red and brown paint in the background and foreground extends to the figure, especially in her upper body. The bicyclist is depicted in an unidealized manner, typical of Dubuffet's dismissal of western ideals of feminine beauty.

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