Bernard Buffet

"You must not confuse Painting with Politeness. The atomic age, the discovery of the Moon, abstract art, will never change what I call: 'Painting'.

- Rembrandt is beautiful but sad. Boucher is cheerful but bad.

'La Grande Peinture' never made anyone laugh -

I do not believe in inspiration. I am just a drudge.

The world may be changing, but Rembrandt, Delacroix and Courbet have never been done Better. 'Painting', we do not talk about it, we do not analyze it, we feel it." Bernard Buffet, 1964

Bernard Buffet, born on July 10, 1928 at 3 Cité Malesherbes, near Place Pigalle in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, and died on October 4, 1999 at Tourtour in the Var department, was a French draughtsman and painter. A realist, his often moving scenographic structure is highly organized, erect and incisive, with human and animal figures whose features he enhances in his remarkable works.

A visionary, as much as a witness to his time in the introspective, heart-rending, even macabre eye he turns with merciless depth on himself, man and his environment through his works.

A witness, he first became one in the aftermath of the Second World War, when he learned of the horror of its exterminations and the danger of atomic warfare. 

A mystic, Bernard Buffet has never denied a faith that is revealed in the heartbreak of each of his works.