Jean Dubuffet and the Musée des Arts décoratifs

The stormy relationship Jean Dubuffet maintained with French public authorities and its strong anti-cultural positions led him to prefer the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, an institution with an independent status, under the leadership of François Mathey, was during the 1960s and 1970s one of the major locations of artistic creation in Paris, alongside existing institutions. After the artist’s first retrospective exhibition in Paris, organized by the museum in 1960, Dubuffet remained faithful and decided to prioritize it when showing his most recent works. Three major exhibitions were held by the museum after the donation of 1967: “Edifices, projets et maquettes d’architecture” (1968), “Parachiffres, Mondanités et autres peintures de 1975” (1976), mais également “Le Salon d’été et autres” (1978), a major “manifesto” exhibition about the project for a monumental sculpture that the Régie Renault had abandoned, leading to highly publicized court case that the artist won after 8 years of proceedings.