Jean Dubuffet saw fine art as dominated by academic training, which he referred to as ‘art culturel’ or cultural art. For Dubuffet, art brut − which included graffiti, and the work of the mentally ill, prisoners, children, and primitive artists was the raw expression of a vision or emotions, untrammelled by convention. He attempted to incorporate these qualities into his own art, to which the term art brut is also sometimes applied.
Dubuffet made a large collection of art brut, and in 1948 founded the Compagnie de l’Art Brut to promote its study. His collection is now housed in a museum, La Collection de l’Art Brut in the Swiss city of Lausanne. Another major collection, using the term outsider art, is the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection, now on loan to the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin.
