JEAN DUBUFFET (France, 1901-1985) COUPLE OF FIGURES, 1972 Collage and felt pen on paper Signed and dedicated "à Jacques Robine" upper right Collage and felt-tip pen on paper; signed and dedicated upper right 27 X 22 CM - 10 5/8 X 8 5/8 IN.PROVENANCE Given by Jean Dubuffet to Jacques Robine Then by descent to the present owners BIBLIOGRAPHY Max Loreau, Catalogue des travaux de Jean Dubuffet. Fascicule XXVI. Dessins 1969-1972, Éditions Weber, Genève: 1975, reproduced and described under n° 328 p. 120 This collage and felt-tip pen on paper, dated 1972, is dedicated to Jacques Robine, architect and expert before the Paris court. The work has remained in the Robine family to this day. Between 1973 and 1983 a legal battle raged between Jean Dubuffet and the Régie Renault. The reason: a commission that Renault had placed with Jean Dubuffet for Le Salon d'été, a 1,800 m2 sculpture-garden to be erected at the company's headquarters in Boulogne-Billancourt. But the project was abandoned just one year after Renault began work on it. Renault cited cost overruns, changes made by the artist and, above all, a problem with the watertightness of the slab on which the sculpture-garden rests, a problem that had arisen because of the artist's miscalculations. This is where Jacques Robine comes in. As an architect and expert, he ruled that Dubuffet's work, begun a year earlier, had not damaged the slab. He invalidated Renault's arguments accusing the artist of the structural problems caused by his sculpture. To thank him, Jean Dubuffet gave him this collage. Couple de figures was produced at a pivotal time in Dubuffet's career. The year 1972 saw the culmination of his Hourloupe cycle, while the gestation period for the Coucou Bazar project began. L'Hourloupe began in 1962 with sketches made mechanically by the artist while on the telephone. Using a black bic pen, he would draw geometric shapes that he would then cross out with a blue and red pen. These ectoplasm-like drawings gradually take on a life of their own. In Couple de figures we find the accumulated black geometric shapes so typical of his work. These accumulations are used to shape figures, soon to become characters. Jean Dubuffet used collage rather than drawing here, because he imagined mobile figures. The mobile figures, called "praticables" (cut-out modules), came to life in a ballet of sculptures and paintings in Coucou Bazar, created in 1973.