Jean DubuffetMonsieur Plume with Creases in his Trousers (Portrait of Henri Michaux) 1947

The outline figure in this work is roughly gouged into the thick paint, the face and body scarred and crumpled. The title identifies it as a caricature of the poet-painter Henri Michaux, whose writings featured ‘Monsieur Plume’, a semi-autobiographical comic character. It belongs to a group of unconventional portraits made from memory of Dubuffet’s artistic and literary friends. The series was exhibited under the title ‘Portraits with extracted Likeness, with Likeness cooked and confected in the Memory, with Likeness exploded in the Memory of Mr Jean Dubuffet’.