Bernard Buffet, French, 1928 to 1999, oil painting on board depicting a portrait of a clown, 1968. Signed and dated, upper right. Framed. The Clown is one of Bernard Buffets most known paintings that demonstrates his skill of revealing the characters feelings and mood through simple pictures. Painted in 1955, this tragic depiction of one isolated clown marks Buffets attraction to subjects of solitude and estrangement. The clown, which for ages has been linked with joy and laughter, now appears in a scene of introspection and melancholy, his downcast mouth and unfocused eyes betraying his dark thoughts. Bernard Buffet was a French painter of Expressionism manner and a member of the anti abstract art group Lhomme Temoin, the Witness Man, and studied art at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts. He created more than 8000 paintings and many prints as well. He was recognized by the public, collectors and critics for his melancholic, gloomy works that convey the atmosphere that prevailed in France after the Second World War. For Post War France, Buffet became an artistic phenomenon. As a successor to the continuity of French painting, he was on a par with Picasso, from the very beginning of his work after the war. Buffet created illustrations for books by Lautreamont, Jean Gion, Jean Cocteau, Cyrano de Bergerac, Charles Baudelaire, Francoise Sagan, Louise Di Vilmorin, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Dante Alighieri, Annabelle Buffet. He created scenery for the theater, opera and ballet. One of a kind artwork.