Bernard Buffet - Le Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre, based on a 1968 composition.
Offset lithograph,
Dimensions: 27.5 × 20 cm, 32 × 42 cm
Signed in pencil lower right: Bernard Buffet
Bernard Buffet ( 1928, Paris – 1999, Tourtour) was one of the most recognizable French postwar artists. He graduated from the École des Beaux-Arts, where he studied under Eugène Narbonne. At the age of just 20, he won the prestigious Prix de la Critique. His distinctive, expressive style was characterized by sharp lines, a restrained color palette, and the distortion of figures. He created paintings, prints, book illustrations, and theater set designs.
Buffet was a member of the group L’homme Témoin (“The Witness”), whose manifesto rejected abstraction in favor of figurative, dramatic painting depicting the human condition. His works are characterized by melancholy, loneliness, and spiritual unease. He was an exceptionally prolific artist—he created over 8,000 works. Despite mixed reviews from critics, he remained one of the icons of 20th-century French painting.
