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Freefrom:Jean Dubuffet, Simon Hantaï, Charlotte Perriand

2 February – 29 March 2018

Jean DubuffetArbre Le Circonvole, 1970

Paint on polyester25 1/4 × 19 3/4 × 16 1/8 in. 64 × 50 × 41 cmT0011291

Exhibitions

Jean Dubuffet: Paintings, Gouaches, Assemblages, Sculpture, Monuments Practicables, Works on Paper, Waddington Galleries, London, UK 1972

Polychromie à travers les Ages et les Civilisations, Musée Bourdelle, Paris, France 1971

Jean DubuffetAmoncellement à la Corne, 1968

Vinyl paint on epoxy resin22 × 23 1/2 × 18 3/4 in. 55.8 × 59.6 × 41 cmT0011291

Exhibitions

Jean Dubuffet: Peintures Monumentées, Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris, France 12 December 1968 – 8 February 1969

Jean DubuffetArbre Le Circonvole, 1970

Paint on polyester25 1/4 × 19 3/4 × 16 1/8 in. 64 × 50 × 41 cmT0011291

Provenance

David Rockefeller (a gift from the artist)

Exhibitions

Jean Dubuffet 1901-1985, Schirn Kunstalle, Frankfurt, Germany December 1990 – March 1991

Jean Dubuffet: A Retrospective, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA 1973

David Rockefeller with architectural model of the facade of 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza, New York showing the work.

Jean DubuffetElément bleu III, 1967

Transfer on polyester39 × 45 5/8 × 4 in. 99 × 116 × 10 cmT0011287

Exhibitions

Jean Dubuffet: a Fine Line, Sotheby’s S|2, New York, USA May – June 2014 Jean Dubuffet, Waddington Galleries, London, UK 1972 (cat. p.23)L’oeil écoute : exposition international d’art contemporain, Palais des Papes, Avignon, France June – September 1969Jean Dubuffet, Peintures Monumentèes, Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris, France 1968-69

Jean DubuffetPaysage logologique, 1968

Transfer on polyester19 1/4 × 33 1/8 × 35 3/8 in. 48.9 × 84 × 90 cmT0011288

Exhibitions

Dubuffet, Galerie K, Paris, France 17 May – 20 May 1990 Twentieth century works, Waddington Galleries, London, UK 26 April – 20 May 1989Jean Dubuffet: selection of works from 1942 – 1981, Galerie Baudouin Lebon, Paris, France 20 September – 12 November 1983Jean Dubuffet: Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture from 30 years, Kunsthaus, Zug, Switzerland 30 January – 13 March 1983Dubuffet, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, USA 14 March – 28 April 1974Fundacion Mendoza, Caracas; Museo de Arte Moderno, Bogota, November – December 1972 Phyllis Kind Gallery, Chicago, USA 15 April – 15 May 1970

Jean DubuffetPaysage au drapeau, 1968

Epoxy paint on polyurethane42 1/2 × 66 1/8 × 58 1/4 in. 108 × 168 × 148 cmT0011289

Exhibitions

Dubuffet, Galerie K, Paris, France 17 May – 20 May 1990 Twentieth century works, Waddington Galleries, London, UK 26 April – 20 May 1989Jean Dubuffet: selection of works from 1942 – 1981, Galerie Baudouin Lebon, Paris, France 20 September – 12 November 1983Jean Dubuffet: Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture from 30 years, Kunsthaus, Zug, Switzerland 30 January – 13 March 1983Dubuffet, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, USA 14 March – 28 April 1974Fundacion Mendoza, Caracas; Museo de Arte Moderno, Bogota, November – December 1972 Phyllis Kind Gallery, Chicago, USA 15 April – 15 May 1970

Simon HantaïMeun GB647, 1967

Oil on canvas84 1/2 × 85 3/8 in. 214.5 × 217 cmT0011281

On loan from the Hantaï family, please contact the gallery for available works.

Exhibitions

Simon Hantaï, Meuns, Guttklein Fine Art, Paris, France 13 May – 09 July 2015 (Cat. p. 33)

Simon HantaïMeun GB1228,, 1968

Oil on canvas87 1/8 × 88 1/4 in. 221 × 224 cmT0011280

On loan from the Hantaï family, please contact the gallery for available works.

Exhibitions

Simon Hantaï : 1960-1976, Centre d’Arts Plastiques Contemporains de Bordeaux, Bordeaux (CAPC), France 15 May – 29 August 1981 (Cat p. 37)

Hantaï, Rétrospective, Musée national d’art moderne - Centre George Pompidou, Paris, France 26 May – 13 septembre 1976

Simon HantaïMeun GB25, 1968

Oil on canvas87 7/8 × 90 1/2 in. 213 × 230 cmT0011279

On loan from the Hantaï family, please contact the gallery for available works.

Exhibitions

Daniel Buren: a tiger cannot change its stripes: een Triptiek, Museumcultuur Strombeek/Gent, Strombeek, Belgium 26 February – 20 March 2016

Simon Hantaï, Meuns, Guttklein Fine Art, Paris, France 13 May – 09 July 2015. (Cat p. 45)

La Peinture après l'abstraction : 1955-1975, Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France 20 May – 19 September 1999

Simon HantaïMeun, 1968

Oil on canvas89 × 73 5/8 in. 226 × 187 cmT0010120

On loan from a private collection please contact the gallery for available works.

Exhibitions

Simon Hantaï, Timothy Taylor, London, UK, 22 January – 5 March 2016

Charlotte PerriandDining table, c. 1960

Rectangular top made of mahogany with two gutters, bevelled edges, apparent dowels, resting on 4 ellipitc legs28 1/8 × 89 1/2 × 34 1/8 in. 71.5 × 227.3 × 86.5 cmT0011295

Charlotte Perriand and Pierre Jeanneret“Équipement de la maison” table, c. 1947

Rectangular ash top with slightly curved edges resting on 4 tapered legs linked by a central crosspiece28 3/8 × 58 7/8 × 32 1/8 in. 72 × 149.6 × 81.6 cmT0011307

Charlotte PerriandSix-sided table, c. 1949

Pinewood table with six-sided thick top resting on 3 cylindrical legs28 × 72 7/8 × 50 3/8 in. 71 × 185 × 128 cmT0011310

Charlotte PerriandDining table with extension, c. 1950

Pinewood dining table, rectangular top features sloping edge resting on 4 ovoid shaped legs28 1/8 × 77 3/4 × 33 1/4 in. 71.5 × 198 × 85 cm

Pinewood extension, square top resting on 4 cylindrical legs28 1/8 × 39 × 33 1/4 in. 71.5 × 99 × 85 cmT0011297

Charlotte PerriandRectangular table, c. 1956

Table made of wooden rectangular top with rounded corners resting on four black lacquered tapered metal legs26 × 44 1/8 × 33 1/8 in. 66 × 111.8 × 84 cmT0011309

Charlotte Perriand“Maison du Brésil” table, c. 1959

Black metal structure, grey formica top, 4 plastic drawers27 5/8 × 33 3/4 × 33 3/4 in. 70 × 86 × 86 cmT0011308

Driven by egalitarian and populist ideals, Charlotte Perriand believed that considered design could have a positive impact on everyday life and, in turn, on society at large. Having rejected the established Beaux-Arts style as a student, Perriand joined Le Corbusier’s studio at the age of 24, which allowed her to pursue an approach to Modernism that brought together both intellectual and material values.

It was following her work with Le Corbusier that Perriand started to develop her ‘Free-Form’ furniture, which harnessed a powerful new approach to design. Taking forms inspired by objects in nature, Perriand generated furniture that was functional, true to raw materials, and responsive to human gestures and interactions. The wooden tables from this period were defined by organic contours, or geometric shapes softened with rounded corners, which avoided collisions in small spaces. The positioning of the legs closer to the centre also took into consideration the ergonomics of people’s knees when sat at the table.

The first ‘Free-Form’ table emerged in 1954, shaped in response to Perriand’s small Montparnasse studio. As Perriand’s biographer Jacques Barsac explains, “the Free-Forms themselves demonstrated a poetic functionalism on the human scale in which each form was rigorously tailored to its use and its production method, while retaining a freedom of composition.”

Whilst Perriand was compelled by conscious design and an awareness of surroundings, Jean Dubuffet’s output was largely driven by a productive unconscious. Each of the sculptures exhibited is connected to Hourloupe, Dubuffet’s longest cycle, which first appeared in 1962 and continued through to 1974. Initially executed on paper, Dubuffet’s adventures in automatism resulted in drawings and paintings made up of multiple cells, where each space comes to life both as an individual element, and as a component within a larger structure.

As the Hourloupe series progressed, the images became more corporeal and quickly developed into vast polystyrene sculptures, a material which Dubuffet favoured as it allowed “the light to emanate from the strata”. Though denying an apparent thought process in the initial design, Dubuffet explained how he wanted to give “monumental

dimensions to these unrestricted graphics, these graphics that escape from the paper’s surface which usually serves as a support”. In this translation of works on paper into three-dimensional space, Dubuffet wanted to activate a cerebral response where the viewer was not only in front of but inside the image; being integrated in, and directly confronted by, the forces of fantasy and reality. The resulting sculptures engage with notions of nature and artifice. The clean colours and linear outlines retain a connection to graphic drawing, whilst the physical presence engages a hybrid aesthetic that sits between landscape and architecture.

A defining characteristic of the Hourloupe cycle was the manifestation of a belief that there is continuity between objects, places and figures, much like Simon Hantaï ’s Meun paintings which were developed through his ‘pliage’ technique and resulted in bold, amorphous, images of chance.

In 1960, Hantaï first developed ‘pliage’, a technique where the canvas is crumpled and folded, then doused in colourful paint. Later, as the canvas is unfolded, the work is revealed for the first time, with areas of positive and negative space having been determined by the element of chance inherent to this technique. Hantaï explained how he tied the canvas “in the four corners, big knots, and in the middle of the crude bag a string which strangles it”. Unlike the initial ‘pliage’ works, there is no centre or axis in the Meuns; the form is liberated and left open to interpretation with the bold resulting images hinting at a figure, whilst also carrying the spontaneity of their conception.

The Meun paintings followed a year long ‘silence’ during which Hantaï retreated from the Parisian art world, and abstained from painting. In 1966, a move to Meun - a small village in the Fontainbleau Forest - broke this hiatus through the regenerative impact of a new environment, an unfamiliar studio and excellent light, allowing for a surge in energy to develop ‘pliage’. As Hantaï explained, “folding came out of nothing. You simply had to put yourself in the place of those who had never seen anything; put yourself in the canvas. You could fill a folded canvas without knowing where the edge was. You have no idea where it will stop.”

Freefrom:Jean Dubuffet, Simon Hantaï, Charlotte Perriand 2 February – 29 March 2018