Seven works by Jean Dubuffet from private collections in New York are to be added to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection’s winter exhibition, Jean Dubuffet & Art Brut. These addictions, procured with the aid of Mr. Pierre Matisse, strengthen the original exhibition version. It is the first exhibition ever in which the work of Dubuffet can be seen together with works of Art Brut.
The exhibition will consist of 70 paintings, sculptures and works on paper by Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) representing many phases of his long career, including his early periods beginning in the 1940s, the so called L’Hourlope style of the 1960s, up to his latest works immediately preceding his death in 1985. Art Brut, the name Dubuffet himself gave to the expressive activity of psycotics, mediums and untrained practitioners, will be represented by 41 works by some of the best known creators represented in the Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne: Aloïse, Carlo, Paul End, Madge Gill, Laure, Raphaël Lonné, Reinhold Metz, and Adolf Wölfli.
The majority of works by Jean Dubuffet will come from the collections of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and testify to the special significance accorded to Dubuffet’s life work by the Guggenheim Foundation. In 1973 the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum organized, in collaboration with the Centre National d’Art Contemporain, Paris, a major retrospective of Dubuffet’s work. Thomas Messer, drector of the Guggenheim Foundation, has given acquisition priority to a broad representation of the master’s work in the Guggenheim’s holdings; in accordance with this policy a group of works from Dubuffet’s last years have recently been obtained by exchange with the Dubuffet estate, and these new acquisitions will be exhibited to the public for the first time in the Venice show. Dubuffet urged the Guggenheim Museum to give special attention to the question of Art Brut, a creative expression estranged from conventional culture.
Jean Dubuffet & Art Brut will open to the public on November 16 and close on March 16, 1987. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection will therefore be open throughout the winter for the first time. The extended open season of the collection has been made possible by a grant from United Technologies Corporation. The exhibition has been sponsored by the Florence J. Gould Foundation, New York, and by Pro Helvetica, the Swiss Council for the Arts, Zurich. The catalogue for the exhibition will be published by Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, Milan, and will include essay by Michel Thévoz, Director of the Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne, and a leading authority on the art of Dubuffet as well as by Thomas M. Messer and Fred Licht, who are curating the exhibition.