Personnage au costume rouge
Jean Dubuffet
1961
Original 7-color lithograph on Arches paper
65 x 48 cm
Annotated artist's proof III/V lower left, signed and dated J. Dubuffet 61 by the artist in pencil lower right
The Character in the Red Suit, lithograph by assemblage transfers, represents a clown with coarse and clumsy features. The work seems neglected: the red overflows the contours, like a child who has coloured badly, and the lithograph seems to have been carelessly splashed with paint. All these efforts to make the viewer's eye believe that the work is (wrongly) sloppy reflect Jean Dubuffet's artistic project, based on the rejection of cultural values.
"True art is always where you don't expect it. Where no one thinks of him, or pronounces his name. Art hates to be recognized and greeted by its name, it runs away immediately", L'Homme du commun à l'ouvrage.
