Bernard Buffet

Galerie Rienzo, New York
Acquired from the above circa 1990

Canvas is not lined. Artist's pinholes visible on all four corners and center of top and bottom edges. Under UV light no inpainting is apparent. Works is in excellent condition.
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Bernard Buffet was born in Paris on July 10, 1928. During the war, he studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts and began exhibiting almost immediately after with wild success. With his prolific production and absolute devotion to the craft of painting, Buffet established one of the most distinctive styles of the 20^th century. His trademark juxtaposition of bold color with heavy black outlining was synthesized from the anguish and isolation felt in the wake of World War II and the visual repertoire of Pop Art. As his wife Annabel Buffet has stated, "Whatever his subject, it is always a cry from the heart, a settling of accounts with anxiety, a victory over himself...In order to understand Bernard, one has to accept that painting is his only raison d'être. It inhabits him body and soul, it is the air he breathes, it sets the rhythm of his daily existence. It is so much a part of him that he cannot conceive of life without it" (Galerie Taménaga, Bernard Buffet, Paris (exhibition catalogue), New York, 1989, n.p.).

Fig. 1: The artist in his studio in 1956