PROVENANCE:
Galerie David et Garnier, Paris
Christie’s New York, Impressionist and Modern Paintings, 1993, lot 318
Private collection, Australia

VASE DE FLEURS

After World War II, Europe started a trend of utilizing young talents to sweep away the melancholy and pain from the war and to lead France into a new era. Young, shy, and extremely talented, Bernard Buffet was part of this trend. Promoted by the media, he became what people called a genius artist with unlimited potential. In the decade from 1948 to 1958, Buffet published several series of paintings on critical topics, including La Passion du Christ, Circus, Paris Views, New York, and Horreur de la Guerre.

In the 28th Venice Biennale, a representative exhibition with the longest history in the art scene, Buffet, though only 28 years old, was given an exhibition space to himself for his 24 oil paintings. However, on February 4 of the same year, the 356th issue of Paris Match, a French tabloid, mocked the 28-year-old Buffet as the most expensive post-war artist. The tabloid published ten pages of pictures of the artist with beautiful mansions and luxurious Rolls-Royce sports cars, triggering strong social criticism.

Even so, Buffet’s creative ability was at its prime, and the scandal did not prevent talents from other fields from reaching out to him for cooperation and co-creation. In that turbulent era, director Etienne Périer, using Pablo Picasso’s documentary as a blueprint, invited Buffet to his studio for a week and comprehensively recorded the painter’s process in creating Bernard Buffet. After Buffet painted a portrait for the famous poet Jean Cocteau, they cooperated again in 1957. The painter composed illustrations and calligraphy for the poet’s drama La Voix Huimaine and engraved it with sharp touches on a copper plate. The Buffet retrospective exhibition in Paris in late 2016 presented this work to the audience in its entirety. Cocteau often commented on Buffet’s talent, and he openly praised him in the newspaper. He stated, “My poems and textes will appear with Buffet’s sketchs. I think if that book appeared in Picasso’s home, he would be furious. After all, people say Buffet is his successor, and now, Buffet’s talent is the only thing he is afraid of.”

When Buffet turned thirty, he faced a series of setbacks and pleasant surprises. He cooperated with François Sagan, the rising star in the French literary scene, on a ballet. In early February, he and Pierre Bergé attended a Christian Dior show with Yves Saint Laurent. The cover of the February 6th issue of the magazine L’Express was a Buffet sketch of a model in a Dior dress. The caption “depressed child” illustrates this era of two men who had experienced France’s turbulent era. Arts even published the portrait Buffet composed for Saint Laurent on its cover page and composed an essay for it.

As the social atmosphere changed, the artist’s creativity was elevated to another level. The obscure gray and white tones and the thin pencil lines were replaced by powerful black brush strokes. He excessively employed oil paints; through stacking, outlining, lifting, scraping, and drying, the paints created a texture like bas-relief on architecture, with light causing natural shadows. Previously criticized for lacking shadows, Buffet once again used his ability to prove that his success from his talent was not accidental.

Buffet purchased the Château de l’Arc, which occupied a wide piece of land surrounded by trees and gardens, and he lived there with his wife Annabel Schwob de Lure. For Buffet, who loved flowers and trees and studied biology, flowers in vases and still lifes became his painting topics and what he focused on in this period. Paintings of this period often portray everyday objects on a square table. Under the artist’s concrete expression techniques, flowers from the four seasons demonstrate the endless life force. The auction piece Vase de Fleurs, created in 1958, is one of Buffet’s early masterpieces. It features blooming purple flowers in a transparent vase. The vase stands on a bright yellow table against a background of flickering colors, in which the painter exhibits confident strong lines. The signature and the manner in which the date are drawn are undoubtedly Buffet’s style. Not hidden in the corner of the picture, they are essential components next to the main body and balance the structure of the painting.