Texte decrepit
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. Ralph F. Colin
Accession Number
1971.81.7
Art Historical Context
Jean Dubuffet's *Texte Décretpit* (1959) is a vibrant color lith that exemplifies the French artist's fascination with raw, unpolished expression. Dubuffet, a pioneer of the Art Brut movement—which celebrated outsider art free from academic conventions—often drew inspiration from graffiti, children's drawings, and ancient markings. This print, part of his Texturologies series evokes crumbling inscriptions with its layered, textured script in bold blues, reds, and yellows, mimicking weathered stone or forgotten writings. Created as a lithograph, the work leverages the medium's versatility for ...
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...