Fraicheur
1959
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
1974.114.12
Art Historical Context
**Fraîcheur by Jean Dubuffet (1959)** Visitors to the National Gallery of Art will delight in *Fraîcheur* (French for "freshness"), a vibrant color lithograph by Jean Dubuffet 1959. This generous gift from Mr. and Mrs. N. Miller captures the essence of Dubuffet's revolutionary Art Brut movement, which he championed starting in 1945. Rejecting polished academic art, Dubuffet drew inspiration from children's drawings, graffiti, and works by untrained outsiders, infusing his pieces with raw, instinctive energy. By the late 1950s, his style had evolved into bold, textured abstractions evoking pri...
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...