Bernard Buffet was a French artist who grew up in a comfortable middle-class family; his mother would regularly take him to the Louvre, where he learned about realist painters. During the Nazi occupation of Paris, he continued his studies at the Lycée Carnot and managed to attend classes despite curfews. But when he was 17, his mother died of cancer, leaving him with a profound sense of loss. Melancholy resonated throughout his life and art.

Dedicated to figurative painting, Buffet gained worldwide fame in the 1950s. He created religious artworks, landscapes, portraits and still lifes characterised by thick black lines, elongated forms and a notable lack of depth. He also depicted ‘miserabilist’ scenes of despair, poverty and Holocaust victims. In 1958, The New York Times named him among the ‘Fabulous Five’ of post-war France alongside Brigitte Bardot, Françoise Sagan, Roger Vadim and Yves Saint Laurent.

But fame came with a cost: photographs of his luxurious lifestyle – large houses, a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce – alienated many during France’s post-war economic hardship. Although he continued painting daily, his early stardom never returned. Suffering from Parkinson’s disease, he died by suicide in southern France at the age of 71.

Since his death, the value of his work has increased significantly. In 2016, Nicholas Foulkes published Bernard Buffet: The Invention of the Modern Mega-Artist, and a major retrospective was held at the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris that same year. Buffet’s work remains highly popular and collectable.