Bernard Buffet

The French painter and graphic artist Bernard Buffet was born in Paris on July 10, 1928. 1939-1943 he attended the Lycée Carnot and took drawing lessons as a teenager. From 1943 he attended the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris for two years, then lived there as an artist. In 1946 he shows a self-portrait for the first time at the exhibition in the Galerie des Beaux-Arts. In 1947, Bernard Buffet participated in the Salon des Indépendants and had his first solo exhibition at the Librairie des Impressions d'Art that same year. The Parisian art dealer Emmanuel David became aware of him and signed a lifelong exclusive contract with Bernard Buffet. From then on, every year in his gallery Drouant-David, he organized an exhibition of Bernard Buffet's work with new paintings on a specific theme. In 1957, Emmanuel David joins forces with art dealer Maurice Garnier to form Galerie David et Garnier, which becomes Galerie Maurice Garnier in 1968. The last exhibition on the theme of "La mort" is held there in 2000, the year after the artist's suicide.