Jean Dubuffet was born July 31, 1901, in Le Havre, France. He attended art classes in his youth and in 1918 moved to Paris to study at the Académie Julian, which he left after six months. During this time, Dubuffet met Raoul Dufy, Max Jacob, Fernand Léger, and Suzanne Valadon and became fascinated with Hans Prinzhorn’s book on psychopathic art. He traveled to Italy in 1923 and South America in 1924. Dubuffet subsequently gave up painting for about ten years, working as an industrial draftsman and later in his family's wine business. He committed himself to becoming an artist again in 1942.

Dubuffet’s first solo exhibition was held at the Galerie René Drouin, Paris, in 1944. During the 1940s, the artist associated with André Breton, Georges Limbour, Jean Paulhan, and Charles Ratton. His style and subject matter in this period owed a debt to Paul Klee. From 1945, he collected Art Brut, spontaneous, direct works by untutored individuals, such as those with mental health disorders. The Pierre Matisse Gallery gave him his first solo show in New York in 1947.

From 1951 to 1952, Dubuffet lived in New York. He then returned to Paris, where a retrospective of his work took place at the Cercle Volney in 1954. His first museum retrospective occurred in 1957 at the Schloss Morsbroich, Leverkusen. Dubuffet exhibitions were subsequently held at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, in 1960–61; the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Art Institute of Chicago in 1962; Palazzo Grassi, Venice, in 1964; the Tate Gallery, London, and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, in 1966; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 1966–67. A collection of Dubuffet’s writings, Prospectus et tous écrits suivants, was published in 1967, the same year he started his architectural structures. Soon thereafter, he began numerous commissions for monumental outdoor sculptures. In 1971, he produced his first theater props, the “practicables.” A Dubuffet retrospective was presented at the Akademie der Kunst, Berlin, the Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna, and the Joseph-Haubrichkunsthalle, Cologne, in 1980–81. In 1981, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum observed the artist’s 80th birthday with an exhibition. Dubuffet died May 12, 1985, in Paris.