The Photograph Albums of Jean Dubuffet

In the years 1945-1963, Swiss artist Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) set about documenting his superb collection of Art Brut, or Outsider Art. He commissioned recognized photographers on the Paris art scene, including Henry Bonhotal and Emile Savitry, to photograph his collection and works from other collections as well. The photographs showcase works of popular and naïve art, children's drawings, tattoos, graffiti photographed by Brassaï, and graphic works from the Solomon Islands. Dubuffet arranged the photographs of work by more than 100 artists--including Gaston Chaissac, Aloïse Corbaz, Joseph Crépin, Auguste Forestier, Somuk and Adolf Wölfli, as well as anonymous artists--in extraordinary sequences contained in 14 albums (755 pages in total). These have been preserved since 1976 in the archives of the Collection de l'Art Brut, Lausanne, Switzerland.