Yellow Tulips

Bernard BUFFET
(1928-1999))


Yellow Tulips
signed and dated 'Bernard Buffet 58' (upper left)
oil on canvas
39 ¾ x 25 ¾ in. (100.4 x 64.8 cm.)
Painted in 1958


Provenance:
David et Garnier, Paris.
Henry C. Woods, Chicago.
The Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, The Nebraska Art Association - Gift from the above, 1967.
Private Collection, New York City - acquired 1999

Maurice Garnier has confirmed the authenticity of this painting.

Bernard BUFFET (1928-1999)

Bernard Buffet (10 July 1928 – 4 October 1999) was a French painter of Expressionism and Member of the Anti-Abstract Art Group "L 'homme Témoin [the Witness-Man]".

Bernard Buffet attended the Ecole des Beaux Arts in 1944. He was awarded an exhibition at the Galerie des Impressions d’Art in 1947, but attracted little attention until he developed his signature style. In 1948, Buffet won the Prix de la Critique. Following this, he enjoyed the greatest acclaim of the young French painters, eventually known as the most commercially successful French painter alive.

He developed a highly stylized aesthetic immediately recognizable as his own. With sharp, linear forms and neutral palette, he depicted elongated figures and heavily stylized still-lifes, which seemed to express the existential and spiritual solitude of the postwar generation. Later, overwhelmed by commissions and success, his work became more decorative, with less of its initial, earlier impact. Buffet also executed graphic work and book illustrations. His career culminated with a museum devoted to his work near Mishima, Japan. His style has become ubiquitous in French history and popular culture.