1956, Jean Dubuffet, The Thief -- Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge)
From the museum label: In his writings, the self-trained and self-identified outsider artist Jean Dubuffet attacked Western high culture as a corrupting force that had contributed to the devastating catastrophes of World War II. His response was to gravitate toward works made by children, criminals, and psychotics — those he considered uncontaminated by conventional standards of conduct. Structured from angular patches of canvas pasted on top of one another, the rudimentary body in The Thief appears scourged and bandaged, evoking the open wounds, burns, and scabs that contemporaneous viewers would have seen on soldiers returning home and in mass media images of wartime atrocities. The title may refer to the hardship and economic scarcity in France during reconstruction, which forced some to steal in order to survive.
1956, Jean Dubuffet, The Thief -- Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge)
From the museum label: In his writings, the self-trained and self-identified outsider artist Jean Dubuffet attacked Western high culture as a corrupting force that had contributed to the devastating catastrophes of World War II. His response was to gravitate toward works made by children, criminals, and psychotics — those he considered uncontaminated by conventional standards of conduct. Structured from angular patches of canvas pasted on top of one another, the rudimentary body in The Thief appears scourged and bandaged, evoking the open wounds, burns, and scabs that contemporaneous viewers would have seen on soldiers returning home and in mass media images of wartime atrocities. The title may refer to the hardship and economic scarcity in France during reconstruction, which forced some to steal in order to survive.