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Lili noir de fumée

Artist/Maker (French, 1901–1985)
Date1946
MediumOil on board
DimensionsOverall: 45 × 33 1/16 in. (114.3 × 83.9 cm)
Frame: 44 5/8 × 36 1/2 × 2 3/4 in. (113.3 × 92.7 × 7 cm)
Credit LineGift of Joseph and Enid Bissett
Object number1961.93
Status
Not on view
Copyright© Estate of Jean Dubuffet / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, NYMore Information
This painting by Jean Dubuffet is part of the AMAM's collection of seven works (six paintings and one drawing) by the artist. Lili noir de fumée (Smoky black Lili) is a portrait of Dubuffet's wife, and was reproduced early in the artist's career (December 1948) in Life magazine in an editorial en titled "Dead End Art: A Frenchman's Mud-and-Rabble Paintings Reduce Modernism to a Joke." The joke was on the writer, however, as Dubuffet went on to become the most significant French artist in the postwar period.

Dubuffet broke ground in the use of new materials in painting, often working in extremely heavy impasto with a granular medium. Antiauthoritarian and highly intelligent, Dubuffet became a creative force not simply in painting, sculpture, and printmaking, but also through his writings and his championship and collecting of what is known (by his naming of it) as Art Brut.

Along with seventeen other works, the seven Dubuffets were a gift to the AMAM from Joseph and Enid Bissett-both good friends of the artist, as is attested by a lively correspondence in the AMAM files.
Exhibition History
Jean Dubuffet, 1943-1959: Retrospective Exhibition
  • Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York (November 10, 1959 - December 12, 1959 )
Modern Masters from the Permanent Collection
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (December 8, 1985 - March 23, 1986 )
Jean Dubuffet: The Bissett Collection
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (May 27, 1988 - September 18, 1988 )
Jean Dubuffet Retrospective
  • Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfort, Germany (December 12, 1990 - March 3, 1991 )
Jean Dubuffet – Figures and Heads. Searching for a Counter-Culture
  • Saarland Museum, Saarbrucken, Germany (September 12, 1999 - November 14, 1999 )
Modern and Contemporary Art
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (July 22, 2008 - September 13, 2008 )
Modern and Contemporary Realisms
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (August 6, 2013 - June 22, 2014 )
Maidenform to Modernism: The Bissett Collection
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (August 15, 2017 - May 27, 2018 )
Collections
  • Modern & Contemporary