Bernard Buffet

BERNARD BUFFET (Paris, 1928 - Tourtour, France, 1999).
"Arbre sur la place du village". 1962.
Mixed media on paper.
Signed and dated.
Enclosed certificate of the Galerie Maurice Garnier, Fonds de Dotation Bernard Buffet.
Measurements: 50 x 65 cm.

This work is located at a particularly relevant moment in Buffet's career, when the artist had already achieved international recognition and his style was fully defined. In these years, his urban views and constructed landscapes acquired a prominent role in his production, allowing him to transfer his particular existential vision to the field of architecture, the street and inhabited spaces. In "Arbre sur la place du village", the square does not appear as a friendly scene, but as a place charged with presence, which condenses the artist's austere, melancholic and deeply recognizable poetics.

The composition depicts a village square presided over by a large central tree, whose black, branching silhouette articulates the entire scene and acts as a compositional and emotional axis. Buffet turns an apparently everyday motif into an image of strong expressive tension. The facades, awnings and windows are constructed by means of his characteristic black line, dry and incisive, which not only delimits the forms, but also imprints the scene with an almost dramatic intensity. The urban space is subjected to a nervous geometry, crossed by diagonals, lattices and chromatic hallmarks of great visual force.

Bernard Buffet was one of the great names of French expressionist figuration in the second half of the 20th century. His work is characterized by the structural black line, compositional austerity and an existential vision marked by the post-war climate. Throughout his career he received important awards, including the Prix de la Critique (1948), the Prix Puvis de Chavannes (1950) and his admission to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1974, in addition to being named an officer of the Legion of Honor. He is represented in institutions such as the MoMA in New York and the Tate, and also has the Bernard Buffet Museum in Japan.