Bernard Buffet

French, 1928-1999

Bernard Buffet was a French painter known for his sharp, linear style and somber depictions of postwar life. Often described as “miserabilist,” his expressionist work reflected the emotional and social realities of mid-20th-century Europe. 

Born in Paris, Buffet trained at the École des Beaux-Arts and gained early recognition in the late 1940s. While many of his contemporaries moved toward abstraction, Buffet remained committed to figurative painting—portraying urban scenes, still lifes, and religious imagery with clarity and restraint. His instantly recognizable style, marked by dark outlines and stark compositions, made him both critically acclaimed and commercially successful at a young age. 

He exhibited widely, especially in France and Japan, with major shows at the Petit Palais in Paris and the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo. The Bernard Buffet Museum in Higashino was founded in his honor and continues to house a significant collection of his work. 

Buffet's paintings are held in both public and private collections and remain of interest to collectors focused on postwar European art, expressionism, and narrative figuration. His work, once polarizing, is now increasingly reevaluated for its technicality and emotional resonance.