Footnotes

Provenance
Pace Gallery, New York
Waddington Galleries Ltd., London (acquired from the above in 1984)
Private Collection, London
Waddington Galleries Ltd., London
Acquired directly from the above by the previous owner in 1993
Thence by descent to the present owner

Exhibited
London, Waddington Galleries Ltd., Jean Dubuffet, 1985, p. 10, no. 7, illustrated in colour
Paris, Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Jean Dubuffet: les dernières années, 1991, p. 184, no. 164, illustrated in colour

Literature
Max Loreau, Catalogue des travaux de Jean Dubuffet, Fascicule XXXVI: Mires, Paris 1988, p. 11, no. 8, illustrated in black and white



Mire G 13 (Bolivar) vibrates with a frenetic energy, the bold reds, yellows and blues drawing the viewer across the canvas in a dazzling melange of colour. This series, Mire, created between 1983 and 1984, was one of Jean Dubuffet's last and marks a culmination of his entire career that would see him radically re-think the previously established definition of art and make him one of the most important and influential artists of the Post-War period.

Mostly self-taught, Dubuffet did not enter the art scene until his forties when he had already had a successful career as a wine merchant. From the beginning, Dubuffet immediately questioned the conventions that had defined art to that point, turning to the work of children, the mentally ill and previously untapped cultures as inspiration for a new way of seeing and an entirely new aesthetic which he would come to champion. Known as Art Brut, this approach saw Dubuffet tackle a variety of subjects across a slew of different media from the conventional to the unprecedented.

The Mire series, using the verb mirar meaning 'to look' or 'to see', marks a significant change in Dubuffet's output. Following a period in the 1960s and 1970s when Dubuffet captured the frantic hubbub of Post-War Parisian life his works became increasingly psychological and less figurative. During this period, Dubuffet began to delve into how people view subjects differently, and particularly through the lens of Art Brut, the differences in how individuals assign meaning to objects and scenes. This led him to expand upon his use of distinct cells, as he had done throughout his oeuvre, to isolate figures and images from any narrative or larger surrounding.

This continues with his Mire works, with even their title questioning what it means to view an object or painting, and here any figuration begins to further break down leaving a rhythmic, kaleidoscopic jumble of colours and forms. There is a raw, vigorous, childlike dynamic to the paint, clearly stemming from Dubuffet's fascination with Art Brut, yet it is also supremely confident with rapid dashes and layers of paint in interlocking patterns on a large scale, causing the viewer to be completely ensconced in its captivating strokes and colours. The works from this series are each subtitled, in this case 'Bolivar', and in others 'Boléro' or 'Kowloon', but with no further indications to draw from these titles only provide vague associations to a culture or time. As such, each viewer will have a unique interpretation that will oscillate and develop making Mire G 13 (Bolivar) a quintessential product of Dubuffet's study as to how we understand, interpret and absorb images. The importance of these works was immediately recognised and in 1984 works from the Mires series were displayed in the French Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Soon after his death in 1985, a major exhibition of his late work was shown at the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris in which lot 2 was exhibited.

In addition to Mire G 13 (Bolivar) the auction includes two other works by Dubuffet, all completely fresh-to-market having been in the same esteemed private collection for over two decades, which together represent three integral moments in his career: Pinède a rare work from 1943 captures his early forays into art, Corps de Dame from 1950 is from one of his most iconic series that would question entirely the prescribed definition of beauty and finally Mire G 13 (Bolivar) where his bright, energetic brushstrokes cause us to question how we interpret art entirely, leaving us further entranced on each additional viewing.