Fantasmes
1958
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
color lithograph
Classification
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. N. Richard Miller
Accession Number
1971.84.35
Art Historical Context
**Fantasmes** by Jean Dubuffet created in 1958, is a vibrant color lithograph exemplifies the French artist's revolutionary Art Brut movement. Dubuffet, who coined the term "Art Brut in 1945, championed raw, unpolished expression inspired outsider artists, children, and graffiti. This print captures his signature style: bold, impulsive forms and earthy textures that reject academic refinement, reflecting postwar Europe's desire for authentic, primal creativity amid cultural reconstruction. As a color lithograph, the work showcases Dubuffet's mastery of printmaking, a medium he embraced to dem...
About the Artist
Jean Dubuffet
Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985) was a French painter and sculptor born into a prosperous family of wholesale wine merchants in Le Havre. His early life revolved around this bourgeois world, with childhood friendships among writers like Raymond Queneau and Georges Limbour shaping his intellectual circle. In 1918, at age 17, he moved to Paris to study painting at the Académie Julian but departed after jus...