About the Artwork
Directly after World War II, Jean Dubuffet emerged as the most important French painter to speak for his generation. That his voice was seemingly inarticulate like the voices of small children, or even incoherent, as that of the severely mentally impaired, conforms to the expectation that the language of art is oracular. With his art brut or "art in the raw," Dubuffet sought to overhaul a visual language that, for too long, had followed idealized classical canons.
This work was painted at the height of Europe's Existentialist crisis. The generally upbeat Parisian street theater has coagulated in a candy-colored mass of molten rock with a bird flapping its wings at the center of the picture, homunculi peering from cellular enclosures, and cacophonous graffiti screeching like chalk on this urban blackboard.
Hard Hit
1961
Jean Dubuffet
1901-1985
French
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Oil on canvas
Unframed: 74 1/2 × 98 3/4 inches (189.2 × 250.8 cm) Framed: 75 7/8 × 100 1/8 × 3 1/4 inches (192.7 × 254.3 × 8.3 cm)
Paintings
European Modern Art to 1970
Gift of W. Hawkins Ferry
69.1
Non-commercial all standard museum
Markings
Signed, lower center: J. Dubuffet
Dated, lower center under signature: 61
Provenance
The artist;purchased from the artist, in the collection of Madame Cutolli (Paris, France);
(Pace Gallery, New York, New York)
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Provenance pageExhibition History
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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
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Loreau, Max. Paris Circus: Catalogue des Travaux de Jean Dubuffet, vol. 19. Paris, 1965, pp. 110-111 (ill.).
Rattner, Ruth. "'Hard Hit' and 'Setting Snares' by Jean Dubuffet." Bulletin of the DIA 52, no. 2/3 (1973): p. 78, (fig. 2), (cover detail ill.).
Jean Dubuffet: A Retrospective. Exh. cat., Guggenheim Museum. New York, 1973, no. 119.
Jean Dubuffet. Exh. cat., Reunion de Musees Nationaux, Grand Palais. Paris, 1973, no. 148.
Jean Dubuffet: Two Decades 1943-1962. Exh. cat., Donald Morris Gallery. Birmingham, Michigan, 1983, p. 48, no. 41 (ill.); p. 54.
Jean Dubuffet 1943-1963: Paintings Sculptures Assemblages. Exh. cat., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Washington, D.C., 1993, no. 47.
Jean Dubuffet: Metemorphoses of Landscapes. Exh. cat., Fondation Beyeler. Basel, 2016, pp. 162-163 (ill.).
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Credit Line for Reproduction
© A.D.A.G.P., Paris, (add date of the publication)
Jean Dubuffet, Hard Hit, 1961, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Gift of W. Hawkins Ferry, 69.1.
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