Murissement
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
1971.84.21
Art Historical Context
Jean Dubuffet's *Murissement* (195), a vibrant color lithograph, exemplifies the French artist's pioneering Art Brut movement, which he championed from 1945. Dubuffet celebrated raw, unpolished expression inspired by outsider artists, children, and graffiti, rejecting academic refinement. Created in the late 1950s amid post-war experimentation, this print captures his fascination with organic forms and primal energy. The title, meaning "Ripening" or "Maturing" in French, evokes themes of growth and transformation, rendered through bold, textured layers typical of Dubuffet's earthy palette and ...
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...