Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) Site avec trois Personnages, 1981 Acrylic on paper laid on canvas 27 x 20 ines (68.6 x 50.8 cm) Initialed and dated lower left: J. D. '81 PROVENANCE: Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris; Private collection, Palm Beach, Florida. LITERATURE: M. Loreau, Catalogue des travaux de Jean Dubuffet, fascicule XXXIV: Psycho-sites, Paris, 1984, No. 437 (E 436), p. 116, illustrated. Between February 1981 and January 1982, Jean Dubuffet produced over 500 small paintings on paper in a sustained and uninterrupted burst of activity. He later grouped these works under the title Psycho-sites, a name that underscores their shared premise: an indeterminate "site," or place, inhabited by undefined, often anonymous figures. Here, in Site avec trois Personnages, three small figures emerge from a dense web of restless, sweeping brushstrokes. They are not fully formed individuals. Instead, they appear as fleeting presences, absorbed into a terrain that feels at once physical and psychological. The figures are rendered with a childlike directness. Their faces, simple and mask-like, recall Dubuffet’s long-standing interest in Art Brut and forms of expression outside academic tradition. Throughout his career, he rejected established artistic values and dismantled academic conventions. He looked instead beyond the traditional canon. He drew inspiration from graffiti, tattooing, and the work of psychiatric patients, among others. He was less concerned with likeness than with essence. These are not portraits, but signs of human presence, reduced to their most basic form. The medium reinforces this immediacy. Acrylic on paper laid on canvas allows for a quick, almost impulsive handling of paint. Earthy reds, ochres, and blacks dominate the surface. They are punctuated by flashes of lighter tones that suggest movement and instability. The composition offers no clear focal point. There is no fixed foreground or background, only a continuous, all-over field of activity. Ultimately, Site avec trois Personnages is less a depiction than an evocation. It reads as a kind of psychic landscape, where figures and surroundings exist in constant flux. In these late works, Dubuffet achieves a balance between disorder and structure, presenting a vision of humanity that is fragmented, embedded, and inseparable from its environment. HID12401132022 © 2026 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved www.HA.com/TexasAuctioneerLicenseNotice

Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris; Private collection, Palm Beach, Florida.

Lined canvas. Very faint diagonal scuff to figure on upper left, visible under raking light. Faint impressions at corners. UV examined.
Framed Dimensions 30.5 X 23 ines