Rinçage, Graissage (Carwash, Oilchange)
1962
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gouache on wove paper
Dimensions
overall: 59 x 67 cm (23 1/4 x 26 3/8 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of the Stephen Hahn Family Collection
Accession Number
1995.29.26
Art Historical Context
Jean Dubuffet's *Rinçage, Graissage (Carwash,change)*, created in 1962, the gritty energy of everyday urban life through the artist's signature raw aesthetic. Rendered in gouache on wove—a medium that allows for bold, opaque layers and a matte finish—this intimate drawing (59 x cm) transforms mundane automotive maintenance into a vibrant, textured tableau. The bilingual title playfully nods to the transatlantic allure of car culture in postwar France and America, reflecting the era's booming consumer society. Dubuffet, a pioneer of *Art Brut* (raw art), rejected polished academic traditions ...
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...