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signed and dated 49

oil on jute

PROVENANCE

James Clark, Dallas
Larry T. Aldrich Collection, Brighton, Conneticut
Galerie Beyeler, Basel
Lewis M. Kaplan, London
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 1974
EXHIBITED

Basel, Kunsthalle, Vilanz Internationale Malerei seit 1950, 1954, no. 57
Basel, Galerie Beyeler, Jean Dubuffet, 1965, no. 18, illustrated
LITERATURE AND REFERENCES

Catalogue des Travaux de Jean Dubuffet, Paysages Grotesques, fasc. V, Lausanne 1956, p. 50, no. 73, illustrated
CATALOGUE NOTE

From Surrealism and Art Brut to COBRA, Nouveau Réalisme and Pop Art, the present group of modern and contemporary masterpieces from a Private Belgian Collection provides a fascinating insight into the major movements of twentieth century post-war European and American art. Being offered in the Contemporary Art Evening and Day sales and at Sotheby's Olympia, the present collection of paintings, sculptures and prints is an exquisite tribute to this collector's refined connoisseurship and a lifetimes dedication to the arts.

Highlights of the diverse collection include important European works by Jean Dubuffet, Pierre Alechinsky and Antoni Tàpies, as well as excellent examples by American masters including Alexander Calder, Cy Twombly and Andy Warhol.

Painted in 1949, Jean Dubuffet's Paysage Couleur de Viande Cuite (lot????) is one of the artist's most important early landscapes. Heavily influenced by his visits to the Algerian desert during the late 1940s, the present work is a reflection upon the coarse clarity of existence in which Dubuffet sought to cast aside the learned artistic techniques and modernist aesthetic of his pre-war style, adopting a more immediate and invigorated spiritual approach to his work. Here the vibrant, tactile surface of Dubuffet's inscribed linear technique enlivens the two dimensional figures and the landscape on which they live and work with a palpable sense of joy and energy.

Whilst a familiar and respected figure around Europe's leading galleries, art institutions and fairs for many years, this Belgian collector was also significantly intrigued by and sympathetic towards contemporary trends in American art. At a time when many European collectors were seemingly oblivious to stylistic developments further from home, the early acquisition of important works by leading American artists such as Alexander Calder's beautifully poised mobile of 1956 (lot????) Andy Warhol's Mao,(lot????) and Cy Twombly's Steps (lot?????) further highlights the discerning and visionary eye with which this private Belgian Collection was assembled.