Pulverulence terreuse
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
1974.114.7
Art Historical Context
Jean Dubuffet’s *Pulverulence terreuse (1958) captures the French artist’s fascination with raw, primal expression during the post-World War II era. A key figure in the Art Brut movement—which celebrated unpolished, intuitive art inspired by children, the mentally ill, and outsiders—Dubuffet rejected academic conventions for bold, textured surfaces evoking earth and decay. The title, translating to “Earthy Pulverulence,” hints at powdery, soil-like forms that mimic the gritty, organic chaos of his paintings, rendered here in vibrant yet muted tones. As a color lithograph, this print exemplifi...
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...