551. BERNARD BUFFET. "Fleurs dans un pot", 1956, oil on canvas, 73 x 60 cm.

BERNARD BUFFET France, 1928-1999 "Fleurs dans un pot" Signed and dated Bernard Buffet 56. Oil on canvas, 73 x 60 cm.

This work is recorded in the Bernard Buffet archives and a certificate of authenticity executed by Galerie Maurice Garnier is included with the lot.

PROVENANCE Swedish private collection. Purchased directly from the artist in New York. By inheritance to the current owner.

The French superstar Bernard Buffet reaped great success through his art at an early age. At fifteen, he entered the prestigious Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and then continued to work in the studio of art professor Eugene Narbonne. At the age of 18, he held his first solo exhibition, and with the support of the influential art dealer Maurice Garnier, he soon achieved great commercial success. Thanks to an outstanding productivity, annual solo exhibitions were subsequently held and over the years he came to create over 8,000 works of art, an impressive number!

Buffet was not only driven and determined, he also wanted to go his own way. Where the post-war generation often chose abstract or purely figurative painting, Buffet created his own, very peculiar expression. In his pictorial world, classic art-historical pictorial themes are found, such as landscapes, portraits and still lifes. But instead of following an art historical canon, the austere figurative paintings are imbued with social criticism. In a restrained palette, with elongated spiky forms and an almost dystopian mood of loneliness, the artist makes a stylistic choice that reflects the alienation and anxiety that existed in the post-war period. His large oeuvre also revolves around ideas about art history, popular culture, death, sexuality and politics, often with direct references to contemporary events. Buffet's greatness lies in the simple, direct and immediate.

Fleur's dans un pot illustrates Buffet's highly original, graphic style. Against a muted neutral background, the sturdy green vase boasts its sprawling blooms about to wither. Perhaps they are symbols of the fragility of humanity and the rebuilding of Europe after the war, like a modern memento mori. Like many of the great masters before him; Monet, Matisse, Van Gogh, to name but a few, Buffet used the still life genre as a way to observe everyday life and transform it into a unique and highly individual painterly form. With its powerful and immediate expression, Fleur dans un pot, painted at the height of his artistry, encapsulates Buffet's artistic style and vision.