Un artiste et un marchand collectionneurs. Première lecture de la correspondance inédite entre Jean Dubuffet et Pierre Matisse

Two collectors : an artist and his dealer. First reading of the unpublished correspondence between Jean Dubuffet and Pierre Matisse. The study of the unpublished correspondence (from 1945 to 1960) between Jean Dubuffet and Pierre Matisse, his dealer in New York, was achieved through documents kept in the Fondation Dubuffet (Paris) and the Pierpont Morgan Library (New York). The author puts forward a periodicization of this corpus and underscores the tensions between the artist and the art-dealer. Their difficulty in keeping to their given roles is increased by the fact that both collect the painter’s works. Their correspondence allows to give back to the Pierre Matisse Gallery the importance it had in diffusing Dubuffet’s works through the United States. Dubuffet’s letters give a precious account about his work and his pictorial techniques. They also allow for a questioning of his strategies and his own image of his work’s reception.