Silkscreen, 101 x 91 cm
Bernard Buffet (*1928 in Paris, †1999 in Tourtour, both France) achieved his artistic breakthrough at the age of 19. He developed an unmistakable style whose rather pessimistic motifs exactly met the taste of the 1950s audience. The art world fought over him; museums around the world displayed his works. Buffet, one of the most acclaimed and financially successful artists of the post-war period, was seen as Picasso's successor.

He painted a total of more than 8,000 paintings, some of which were reproduced millions of times. However, after around ten years - in the 1960s - the mood in the art world changed radically: critics assessed Buffet's works as kitschy and superficial, and they disappeared into the archives of museums. He himself contributed to this development with increasingly abstruse works. As steep as his rise was, so deep was his fall: "Towards the end of his life," as Lempertz.com reads, "Buffet was as close to oblivion as decades before to immortality."