Jean Dubuffet is a French painter from Le Havre, also a sculptor and visual artist. He is known to be the precursor of art brut.

Son of wine merchants, and having started a career as a merchant, nothing predestines Dubuffet, born in 1901, to painting. However, very quickly, in the company of Georges Limbour, he decided to abandon his studies to devote himself to art, first joining the Beaux-Arts evening classes in 1917, then, he moved to Paris in 1918 with his friend Limbour to devote himself to painting, while his friend devoted himself to poetry.

It was in Paris that Jean Dubuffet became fully self-taught, forging his talent and drawing inspiration from encounters and numerous journeys, where he got an idea of the shortcomings of art in France. This self-taught and casual attitude allows him to take regular breaks in his art, not knowing which path to follow, divided between trade and his paintings. He became a “full-time” painter in 1942. Still unknown, he succeeds in the tour de force of being exhibited at the Drouin gallery, with his first major work, “Les gardes du corps”, which will earn him many critics, but also new perspectives: he is thus exhibited in New York. Dubuffet cultivates the paradox between his drawings, which are considered to be little researched, his art studies and his numerous travels.