Member of L"Homme Témoin [the Witness-Man], the Anti-Abstract Art Group, and a well known Expressionist painter, Bernard Buffet (1928 - 1999) he was named one of the most important 10 post-wart artists by art magazine Connaissance des Arts and one of France's Fabulous Young Five by The New York Times magazine. In the 1970s, Britain's middle class made his clown paintings quite popular, which was part of the reasons the French elite denigrated him for being kitsch and even a poser. Lately, there's been an attempt to bring back Bernard Buffet's art thanks to younger French art critics who looked past the prejudices against the artist popularized back in the 70s.
Maurice Garnier, Paris gallery owner and a friend of the painter explains "He sold too well... "He made a lot of money. He lived in an ostentatious way. The powers that be hated him for all that.""Painting, we do not talk about it, we do not analyse it, we feel it."
quote by Bernard Buffet
Read more about the Bernard Buffet controversy here