OF COURSE YOU RECOGNIZE HIM...
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| Tête de Clown - 1955 |
or his owl
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| Le Petit Duc -1969 |
or even a self portrait. You certainly don’t have to be an art genius or historian to know the picture is a Bernard Buffet.
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| Self Portrait -1966 |
Never the less, I don’t think that I have ever seen a retrospective of his work before.
He was born in 1928 and took his life in 1999. He had Parkinson’s and could no longer hold a brush. Buffet is considered to be one of the most famous French painters of the 20th Century but he is also one of the most contentious.
There are so many descriptions of his work. Let’s look at a few
« Only the works from his early period are any good » …
I only discovered a couple of his early paintings - but even then his style is recognizable.
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| L'Atelier - 1947 |
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| Fleur sur une Chaise (for Mummy) -1947 |
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| Man with a fried egg - 1947 |
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| The Dead Fowl - 1947 |
« He’s a commercial painter » - Well he did become a millionaire but I don’t think he had so many admirers as could be imagined.
« His paintings are all painted in the same way »…here I agree and I think that this is what makes him so recognizable. His self portraits over the years are all painted in the same position - looking at his easel and there is only one in my book which stands out from the rest.
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| Self Portrait - 1949 |
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| Self Portrait - 1955 |
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| Self portrait (?) |
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| Self Portrait - 1956 |
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| Self Portrait - 1977 (I wonder if he has such a beard?) |
And yes, he was extremely popular with the public in his early years. As long as his painting seemed to express anxieties of a generation that had come through the war, he was hailed as a genius. Success allowed him to paint what he wanted to. His style is disconcerting and harshly aggressive. The exhibition was another block-buster. In all over 100 paintings.
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| Self Portrait - 1953 |
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| Le Sommeil d'Après Courbet - 1955 |
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| Trapéziestes - The Circus - 1955 |
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| Clown with Trombone - 1955 |
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| Acrobats 1955 |
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| Clowns, Magicians, and Singer -1991 |
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| Clowns, Musicians Harpist - 1991 |
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| Two Men in a Room - 1947 |
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| Holidays in the Vaucluse - 1950 |
There is a lot of work too where we see nude men - there were many more, but...
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| Nude male in a room - 1948 |
or women - no beauty in my book, in fact the men looked starved and the women were old. I just hope my body doesn'tlook as withered as these.
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| Three Nudes (La Toilette) - 1949 |
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| The Large Nude - 1979 |
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| Three women - 1963 |
The suddenly there is a trio which breaks away from his recognizable style…
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| Undressed - 1966 |
His animals were not much happier either...
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| The Dead Rooster |
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| Still life - skinned rabbit - 149 |
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| Bul frog on a water lily - 1956 |
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| Two Rays - 1963 |
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| The Ram - 1960 |
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| ??? |
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| Fish Skeleton - 1963 |
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| My Monkeys - Gorilla - 1997 |
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| My Monkeys -Female - 1997 |
Some of the themes can be related to paintings we all know…
The Absinth Drinker (Degas -1893)
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| The drinker - 1948 |
Gustave Courbet "The Origin of the World" (1886)
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| Red Bird - 1959 |
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| The Owl - 1959 |
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| Birds - "Birth" of a day - 1959 |
Or other themes, religious or otherwise which still seem to be so triste...
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| Lapidation - 1948 |
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| Darning the nets - 1948 |
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| Les Folles - The Bride - 1970 |
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| Les Folles - Couple with a Skull - 1970 |
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| Skinned head - 1964 |
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| Skinned head - 1964 |
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| Beach - The sun-umbrella - 1967 |
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| 20 thousand leagues under the sea - the Giant Pulp - 1989 |
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| 20 thousand leagues under the sea - the giant Nautilus porthole - 1989 |
One theme that did reconcile me with his work was the still life which I am usually not keen about at all. Or a couple of his landscapes. Basically because they were minimalist or the objects really had nothing to do with the setting. He seems to be obsessed with Ray or Sole...but why, I didn't find out...
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| Stii Life - revolver - 1949 |
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| Galerie Visconti - 1954 |
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| Still Life with a sole - 1952 |
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| Nanse - 1951 |
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| Nanse - 1955 |
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| Saint Céneri Chapel - 1976 |
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| Saint Maclou Church - Pontoise - 1976 |
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| The Blue Coffee Pot - 1956 |
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| Still Life with Ray - 1956 |
Pierre Bergé was Buffet's live-in lover until Bergé left Buffet for Yves Saint Laurent. (1951-56). Bergé was younger than Buffet (and my goodness he was handsome). The English say that Bergé left him for Yves Saint Laurent and the French say it the other way around. Does it matter?
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| Pierre Bergé - 1950 |
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| Isabel with plait - 1960 |
He then fell head over heals in love with Annabel.
In December 1958, he married Annabel, who was a writer and actress. His daughter Virginie was born in 1962, and later, daughter Danielle in 1963. His son Nicolas, was born in 1973, the same year that he was named "Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur ».
One painting which really caught my attention was « Kabuki Ren Jishi » done in 1987. He was very attracted to Japan and in fact had a museum there dedicated to his work.
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| Kabuki Ren Jishi - 1987 (My favorite) |
Despite his wealth, fast cars, bi-sexuality - and the rest, he never seemed to be a happy man if one takes his paintings into account.
These were a couple of his last paintings…macabre
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| Death |
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| Death 7 - 1999 |
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