Impressionist and Modern Art

We wish to thank Galerie Maurice Garnier for kindly confirming the authenticity of the present lot, which is recorded in the gallery's Archives and which will be accompanied by a photo-certificate of authenticity.

Exhibited:

"XXVIII Venice Biennale," French Pavilion, 'Buffet and César Room,' Venice, Italy, 1956, n.n.

Literature:

France in Venice, The French Pavilion from 1948-1988, Venice, 1990, p. 42 (illustrated).

Bernard Buffet, Catalogue Raisonné de l'Œuvre Peint, Vol. 2, Fonds de Dotation Bernard Buffet, Paris, 2024, p. 64 (illustrated). 

Lot Essay:

Still life occupied a central place in Bernard Buffet’s œuvre from the very beginning of his career. Throughout the 1950s, he returned to the genre repeatedly, firmly asserting his commitment to figuration over abstraction while also channeling a centuries-old tradition inherited from the Old Masters.

In a deceptively simple interior, mundane-yet-highly-symbolic objects (such as a few coins, a petrol lamp, a toppled empty wine glass, as well as a large titular checkerboard) are arranged on a plain round table. Without a doubt, Le Jacquet reads as a modern vanitas, inspired by the French 17th century still lifes Buffet so admired at the Louvre. Stripped of anecdotal detail, each object is rendered with a gravity and monumentality that lend it an almost architectural presence, every form delineated by Buffet’s unmistakable black contours. The emphasis on sharp outlines, the restrained palette of greys and browns, and the use of humble objects became hallmarks of Buffet’s distinctive style in the 1950s. In the present work, such signature features heighten the austere mood and evoke a profound sense of solitude, echoing the existentialist writings of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, to whose cultural milieu Buffet’s work is often linked.

Far from a decorative exercise, Le Jacquet stands as a visual reflection of post-war trauma and Buffet’s personal meditation on time, fragility, and isolation — an obsession seemingly rooted in the artist's own life. Pierre Bergé, Buffet's lover at the time, understood the biographical vein of Buffet’s paintings particularly his still lifes, pointing out: “Buffet is present everywhere in his paintings [...] This is particularly true for Buffet. He looks like his paintings.”