The catalogue to a groundbreaking exhibition of Dubuffet's seminal "Art Brut" and including historic essays by the artist published in English for the first time.

Jean Dubuffet is a French painter and sculptor who painted in a deliberately crude manner, inspired by art of the mentally ill or "Art Brut." Dubuffet developed a technique of thick impasto and frequently incorporated unorthodox materials ranging from cement and gravel to leaves, dust, and even butterfly wings into his works. His controversial materials and mark-making solidified his legacy as an iconoclastic figure in the canon of postwar European paintings, and his work has been exhibited and collected all over the world.

This is the first book to be published on Dubuffet's early work in painting and sculpture in more than two decades. Organized by Mark Rosenthal, the exhibition focuses on Dubuffet's work from 1943 to 1959, and emphasizes the artist's anticultural approach in his depiction of subjects and his use of unorthodox materials. Several works by the French painter are on loan from private collections and museums.