1966.14, Dubuffet, The Reveler

In Surrealism, art and literature were closely interwoven, especially in France, where the cultural milieu often produced highly articulate artists.  After World War II, Jean Dubuffet, an idiosyncratic writer, painter and polemicist, carried the irrationalism of Surrealism and Dada into a new dimension. While Matisse was glorifying his old age with epic paper collages, Dubuffet was making art that appeared primitive, paradoxical, absurd and extremely witty.  He used the mud daubs and graffiti of the modern city in marvelous ways.  Almost any shape or material was grist for Dubuffet's iconoclastic mill.  In "The Reveler" the human figure is seen as a cheerful and probably drunken jigsaw puzzle; a child's game or scribble becomes sophisticated art. "The Reveler" also seems free and joyous; in his own way Dubuffet expresses as much "joie de vivre" as Matisse.

Dubuffet_Jean: ULAN: 500019113

France (nation): TGN: 1000070

canvas: AAT: 300014078

impasto (painting technique): AAT: 300053368

oil paint: AAT: 300015050

twentieth century (dates CE): AAT: 300404514

biomorphic abstraction: AAT: 300069065

black (color): AAT: 300130920

canvas: AAT: 300014078

curves (geometric figures): AAT: 300378887

Dada: AAT: 300021500

drinking: AAT: 300379698

geometric abstraction: AAT: 300056509

impasto (painting technique): AAT: 300053368

outsider art (art brut): AAT: 300056472

painting (visual works): AAT: 300033618

revelers: AAT: 300380098

stripes: AAT: 300010230

Surrealist (style or movement): AAT: 300021512

white (color): AAT: 300129784

Until 1966: Galerie Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland [1] 

1966: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, gift of James H. and Lillian Clark [2]

The main source for this provenance is the letter from Sue Graze of the Dallas Museum of Art to Lillian Clark of Dallas, dated June 15, 1987, copy in Dallas Museum of Art Collections Records object file. 

[1] See the letter from Merrill C. Rueppel of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts to Mr. Ernst Beyeler of Galerie Beyeler, dated April 4, 1966, copy in Dallas Museum of Art Collections Records object file. 

[2] The name of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, founded in 1933, was changed to the Dallas Museum of Art in 1983.

Apply to objects where number equals 1966.14