Expressionist artist Bernard Buffet was born in Paris on July 10, 1928, and died in Tourtour on October 4, 1999. Painter, watercolorist, draughtsman, illustrator and printmaker, he also designed theatre and ballet decors. He studied two years with Eugène Narbonne at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts. His style was defined at an early stage by black elongated lines, angular shapes in different shades of beige and grey. As for his themes, they were varied: portraits, nudes, landscapes, war horrors, mythology, circus or still life. In 1946, Bernard Buffet participated in his first collective exhibitions at the Salon d’automne, Salon des indépendants as well as Salon des peintres témoins de leur temps. And in 1947, he held his first solo exhibition during which the Musée national d’art moderne bought ‘’Nature morte au poulet’’. At the age of 22, his artworks were already displayed abroad: New York, London, Basel, Copenhagen and Geneva. In 1948, Maurice Garnier, a gallerist and great admirer of the young painter, organized for him exhibitions on different subjects every February. And from 1977, he devoted his gallery to him, creating at the same time an endowment fund in the hope that one day, a museum would be dedicated to him.

Bernard Buffet was the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions, namely Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1959), Chevalier of the Ordre de la Légion d’honneur (1970) and member of the Académie des beaux-arts (1974). In addition, beside exhibiting everywhere in the world, he was the subject of important books written by famous authors such as Maurice Druon and Louis Aragon. In 1955, Bernard Buffet won first place in the referendum organized by Connaissance des arts magazine to select the ten best post-war painters. And three years later, the first retrospective of his work was held in Paris, at the Galerie Charpentier. Many others followed, both in France and abroad. The same year, he married his muse, Annabel Schwob, whom he could not stop painting, so much so that he held, in 1961, an exhibition entitled ‘’Trente fois Annabel Schwob.’’ (Thirty times Annabel Schwob). At the same time, he offered his paintings depicting the life of Christ to the Vatican Museum and they are displayed in a special room. In 1973, a museum bearing his name was inaugurated in Higashino, Japan.

Pierre Descargues, the famous art critic, said: ‘’Buffet and his work are a powerful testimony to the disarray of our time. In representing inactive figures and their absurd lives, Buffet expresses an evil of which we are each the victim; with violence, giving himself entirely to this oeuvre of vengeance, that is to say, by intimately combining love and hatred.’’ And according to Buffet: ‘’We do not talk about painting, we do not analyse it, we feel it.’’