"Paris Polka" Jean DuBuffet. French (1901-1985). Father of art brut and thus, "outsider art", sets record at Christies "Looking Forward to the Past" sale.

Because of my interest in "outsider" art, I was especially anxious to see how the major DuBuffet painting "Paris Polka" would do at the Christie's big sale this week in New York. It did just fine, realizing $24,805,000 (hammer price + buyers premium). This was a new world record for the artist.

Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985)
Paris Polka
signed and dated ‘J. Dubuffet 61’ (lower right)
oil on canvas
74 3/4 x 86 1/2 in. (190 x 220 cm.)
Painted in 1961.  

Galerie Daniel Cordier, Paris
Galerie Beyeler, Basel
The Morton and Linda Janklow Collection, New York

Acquired from the above by the present owner 

(courtesy Christie's)

French artist Jean Dubuffet was particularly struck by Bildnerei der Geisteskranken and began his own collection of such art, which he called art brut or raw art. In 1948 he formed the Compagnie de l'Art Brut along with other artists, including André Breton. The collection he established became known as the Collection de l'art brut. It contains thousands of works and is now permanently housed in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Dubuffet characterized art brut as:

"Those works created from solitude and from pure and authentic creative impulses – where the worries of competition, acclaim and social promotion do not interfere – are, because of these very facts, more precious than the productions of professionals. After a certain familiarity with these flourishings of an exalted feverishness, lived so fully and so intensely by their authors, we cannot avoid the feeling that in relation to these works, cultural art in its entirety appears to be the game of a futile society, a fallacious parade." — Jean Dubuffet. Place à l'incivisme (Make way for Incivism). Art and Text no.27 (December 1987 – February 1988). p.36 Dubuffet's writing on art brut was the subject of a noted program at the Art Club of Chicago in the early 1950s.

Dubuffet argued that 'culture', that is mainstream culture, managed to assimilate every new development in art, and by doing so took away whatever power it might have had. The result was to asphyxiate genuine expression. Art brut was his solution to this problem – only art brut was immune to the influences of culture, immune to being absorbed and assimilated, because the artists themselves were not willing or able to be assimilated. (courtesy Wiki)

"The term outsider art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for art brut (French: [aʁ bʁyt], "raw art" or "rough art"), a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture; Dubuffet focused particularly on art by those on the outside of the established art scene, such as psychiatric hospital patients and children". (courtesy Wiki)