#paul duhem

[nicecollection]

Paul Duhem - 1997, crayon blanc, pastel gras et peinture à l'huile sur papier, 55 x 72 cm

[desimonewayland]

Paul Duhem: untitled, between 1990 and 1999 oil and coloured pencil on paper 65 x 50  cm

Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne

[low-country]

Paul Duhem - Portraits (1990-1999)

Paul Duhem had been institutionalized for more than 40 years and was well into his seventies when he established a grueling quota for himself. He made up his mind that he wanted to produce six artworks a day, every day, for the remainder of his life. Each morning after taking breakfast at a hospital for mental patients in southern Belgium, he brought out his crayons and jars of paint and crayons and, in the three or four hours before lunch, produced three new drawings. Then, in the hours between lunch time and dinner, he turned out three more works. Duhem’s subjects mostly took just two forms -- a sad-eyed homme whom everybody understood to be Paul himself, and also the locked doors that he encountered everywhere in the mental institution.

(Dean Jensen Gallery)