Our “Modern Prints”, in the majority of cases, are posters designed by artists with the intention to advertise their exhibitions. These posters are based on an original draft by the artist. The dates printed relate to the date of the poster’s original production. In many cases the lettering was also designed by the artist.


Bernard Buffet (1928-1999)

Galerie Matignon. Lithograpies L'Oeuvre Complet 1959-1979

Lithograph printed in colours, 1979, printed by Mourlot, published by Galerie Matignon, Paris, on wove paper, with full margins, sheet 670 x 520mm., (26 1/4 x 20 1/2in) (unframed)

Embodying Jean-Paul Sartre’s Existentialism and Albert Camus’s Absurdism, Bernard Buffet’s painting conveyed the anxiety that permeated France during the Nazi occupation and came to dominate the post-war figurative art scene. A member of a group called L’Homme Témoin (The Witness) along with Bernard Lorjout and André Minaux, Buffet developed a realist style infused with social criticism, featuring a restrained palette and black outlines. He is best known for his grim “Horror of War” series and myriad streetscapes and interior scenes populated by angular, emotionless figures. Self-portraits, religious scenes, still lifes also figure among his oeuvre, which extends to lithography, engraving, and sculpture. While Buffet continued to enjoy success as a commercial artist until a debilitating illness prompted him to commit suicide, his work fell out of favor among critics in the 1960s and remains relatively unknown.

Provenance: Ex coll Family Mourlot, with the Mourlot collection rubberstamp verso