Born in Le Havre, France, in 1901 and deceased in Paris in 1985, Jean Dubuffet is a french painter, sculptor and plastic artist. He is also the first theorician of what he called "art brut", and the author of vigorous criticism about the dominant culture.
Arrived in Paris in 1918, Jean Dufuffet entered into the Julian Academy, where he would only stay during 6 months, when he decided to remain independant. In 1922, in Montmartre, he met André Masson, Raoul Dufy, Juan Gris et Fernand Léger, who became his friend.
From 1924 to 1933, Dubuffet stopped his artistic activities, deciding to dedicate himself to the family enterprise. However, until 1942 his work and the war prevented him from completely dedicating himself to his art work.
Dubuffet's work is constituted of thousands of paintings, drawings, sculptures, dating from 1942 to his death in 1985. Prolific and protean, he understood many periods and different styles, going from pure abstraction to picturesque scenes looking like children drawings.
Dubuffet's fascination for the pictural porduction of mentaly ill people, prisoners and children brought him to develop an art unconstrained from the dryness of middle-class codes and from intellectualism.