Ink and graphite on paper, 38 x 29.2 cm © Adagp, Paris 2023.
There are numerous portraits of Jean Paulhan painted by Jean Dubuffet dating from the beginning of their friendship, in 1945, during a trip to Switzerland (cf. Guide d’un petit voyage en Suisse, Gallimard, 1947). In this one can be read an inscription on the paper that Paulhan is holding in his left hand: “The worst is the enemy of the bad”, Swahili proverb.