This book is such a treat, because it covers his entire career with tons of big, colorful images! The text is concise and easy to read (it is in English, despite what the above description says) and it is informative.

It is the images though that shine! It is nice to see a solid retrospective of his work in quality color pictures.

THE ANARCHIST AND PASSIONATE INDIVIDUALIST JEAN DUBUFFET (1901-1985) WAS A LIFE-LONG REBEL AGAINST THE BEAUX-ARTS TRADITIONS OF FRANCE AND REMAINS TO THIS DAY A LARGELY UNKNOWN ARTIST IN HIS OWN COUNTRY. YET HIS WORKS ARE AMONG THE MOST KEENLY SOUGHT AFTER BY COLLECTORS OF CONTEMPORARY ART.

As A WRITER, PAINTER, SCULPTOR AND DESIGNER OF MASSIVE SCULPTURAL "ENVIRONMENTS" IN EUROPE AND THE USA, DUBUFFET WAS AN ARTIST IN A CATEGORY OF HIS OWN. HE CREATED THE BAFFLING WORLD OF THE HOURLOUPE AND WAS THE SCOURGE OF "ASPHYXIATING" OFFICIAL CULTURE, AS WELL AS BEING THE FIRST TO DISCOVER AND CHAMPION OUTSIDER ART (ART BRUT) IN A SERIES OF RESOUNDING MANIFESTOES.

LAURENT DANCHIN'S PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED STUDY PRESENTS THE WORK OF THIS INVENTIVE AND PROLIFIC ARTIST, PERIOD BY PERIOD. DUBUFFET'S FERTILITY PUTS HIM ON A PAR WITH PICASSO, AND HIS WRITINGS, WHICH ARE AN INSEPARABLE PART OF HIS CREATIVE ACTIVITY, ARE ADMIRED FOR THEIR CRISP AND PUNCHY STYLE.

A SECTION IS DEVOTED TO OUTSIDER ART, THE SECRET GARDEN OF A PAINTER-PHILOSOPHER WHOSE LEGACY CAN NOW BE SEEN IN RETROSPECT AS ONE OF THE GREAT MONUMENTS OF TWENTIETH CENTURY ART.

Introduction

1. 1901-1942

 The years of apprenticeship

 A biography in two stages

 The lonely childhood of a bourgeois boy

 An artist's life: a false start

 Sudden change of tack: the "common rran" at work

 The double life of a wine merchant

2.1942-1985

 Fourty-two years of unbroken creation

 Before and after the Hourloupe

 Rival attractions: involvement or withdrawal?

 Withdrawal: the fascination with matter

 Involvement: getting away from academic drawing

3.Children's drawings, graffiti,Rorschach blots, assemblages:unusual ways of getting away

 from traditional drawing

 Puppets of Town and Country

 Thick Impastos and Beaten Pastes: the grand

 graffiti circus

 Tables and stones of clairvoyance, prints,

 cut-outs and assemblages

Dubuffet and I'Art Brut

4.From the Hourloupe cycleto the Non-lieux: painting ormetaphysics?

 The Hourloupe: a twelve-year long artistic passion

 Visit to the Eloserie Falbala

 Problematic return to reality

 The wisdom of nothingness?

Appendiices

 Bibliography

 Some addRrsses

 Photographic credits