Jean Dubuffet Façades d'immeubles (Building Façades)

Tall, narrow, black building fronts fill this abstracted, horizontal painting. Partitions separating the buildings extend above the rooflines, and those, along with low domes atop some of the buildings, brush the top edge of the canvas. The narrow band of sky between the flat rooflines and the top of the composition is filled with cream-white paint, applied heavily in thick strokes. The buildings are painted with wide, horizontal strokes of black paint. The outlines of doors, windows, and the brick partitions between the buildings were incised into wet paint to delineate those features. Some of the outlines are also streaked with cobalt blue, butter yellow, brick red, and plum purple. Six people with oversized, round, peach-colored heads on spindly black bodies look out at us from windows across the composition. Cartoon-like eyes, noses, and smiling mouths are incised into wet paint. Along the bottom level, the buildings are numbered 78, 80, 82, and 84. Signs, also incised in wet, black paint to reveal white outlines, appear over the doors. The leftmost building reads “OPTICIEN” above “Leroy.” The next store is “PARFUMS,” then “MODES,” “Coiffeur,” “JOURNEAX,” “PRIMEURS,” and “BAR.” Under “PRIMEURS,” a sign on the store front reads “FRUITS ET LEGUMES.” Two people walk along the street, at the bottom of the canvas. One is to our left of center and stands facing us, smiling. The other is to our right, also smiling as he walks to our left in profile.