Jean Dubuffet is among the most important artist personalities of the Nouvelle École de Paris. Jean Dubuffet's works, which are close to the gestural-expressive style of the Informel, at times show figurative notions, for instance when heads, bodies or landscapes seem to arise from the jotted paint. Jean Dubuffet also possessed great poise in working with pastose layers of paint as well as the usage of sand or broken glass, which he added to the paint in order to create relief-like, almost sculptural surfaces. An extensive oeuvre of drawings and prints as well as sculptures complete the artist's multi-faceted range of works.
Jean Dubuffet's definition of art was innovative for art history, as he collected and exhibited art of mentally ill or prison inmates, which he referred to as "Art Brut". To the artists of CoBrA "Art Brut" was an important source of inspiration. The artistic rank of the multiple documenta participant Jean Dubuffet is proven by numerous retrospectives, the latest in the Kunsthalle of the Hypo-Kulturstiftung in Munich (2009).