Bernard Buffet (1928-1999): The Sacred Heart

Bernard BUFFET (1928-1999) The Sacré-Coeur Original lithograph on paper Paper dimensions: 76 x 58 cm Image dimensions: 70 x 50 cm Signed and numbered 83/125 at the bottom Provenance: Private collection, Paris Unglued, untorn paper. Slightly insolated. Old plexiglass frame. FREE Dimensions with frame: 102 x 72 cm Sold with invoice and certificate of authenticity. Fast and careful shipping with insurance. Bernard Buffet was born on July 10, 1928 in Paris, in the Batignolles district, son of Charles Buffet and Blanche Colombe. For his admirers, Bernard Buffet is genius in its purest form. He was admitted to the National School of Fine Arts at the age of 15, introduced to collectors by the painter Aujame and was awarded the Critics' Prize at the age of 20. Bernard Buffet is a master of miserabilism who has his place in the greatest museums; Japan has even dedicated one entirely to him in Surugadaira with nearly a thousand works. Bernard Buffet can serve as an illustration of the divorce between the French and contemporary art. A popular artist par excellence, Bernard Buffet is loved by the public, hated by the elites who criticize him for being too verbose: 8,000 canvases, watercolors, drawings, lithographs and engravings. In this he joins Renoir and Picasso, painters who are also very fertile. Bernard Buffet's personality was revealed in 1947 with his first angular characters who placed him in the miserabilist expressionist movement of Francis Gruber and Georges Rouault. First contact with Emmanuel David in 1948, who was truly at the origin of his international career with a first exhibition at the Galerie Drouant-David in 1949. Because painting was expensive, he saved it and put little of it on his canvases . So little material and few colors, only grays, blacks, bistres and greens. His works are strong, poignant, the determined drawing lengthens like a plea. Bernard Buffet's style is identifiable among all by the networks of straight and dry lines which he had made into his pictorial system. Gray faces, wrinkled foreheads, straight or sparse hair, clenched hands, his characters seem crucified. We like this new personality: the Bernard Buffet style is essential. On October 4, 1999, no longer able to paint due to his Parkinson's disease, Bernard Buffet ended his life in Tourtour.