Art Market Monitor

Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis

  • AMMpro
  • AMM Fantasy Collecting Game
  • Podcast
  • Contact Us

Bernard Buffet: Case Study in Conflict Between High and Low Culture?

January 14, 2016 by Marion Maneker

Stephen Bayley is having none of Nick Foulkes’s rehabilitation of Bernard Buffet, “Let’s be frank, Buffet was kitsch. And kitsch means fake.”

That doesn’t mean the book isn’t worthwhile reading. Here, Bayley make the case for Buffet as a case study in the intersection of artists and popular culture (sound familiar?):

But the Buffet story is fascinating. At a commercial level, his success was enormous. And his pictures satisfied a certain need: a Buffet image of, say, a depressed pêcheur recalls a moment in time as precisely as a tangerine-coloured Arne Jacobsen chair or a Renault Floride. What we have in The Invention of the Modern Mega-Artist is a case-study of the conflict between high and low culture, the uneasy bargain between popular acceptance and critical acclaim. Buffet never pleased serious critics, but today we are more inclusive. Categories and frontiers of art history are being reconsidered, so Buffet deserves reappraisal. But it’s a tough job: everyone agrees that he was a faiseur (a poser) who caricatured the idea of a modern painter on a stage managed by the French media.

If the conventional view of Buffet was that his pictures of weeping clowns are ham-fisted, coarse and sentimental, executed with modest skill, the very definition of low-brow, a shallow art requiring no interpretation or effort by the viewer, then it is up to his new champion to make an alternative case. That’s the dynamic of this big, interesting book. Foulkes thinks it was merely snobbery that denied Buffet esteem but, in fact, it was taste. There really is such a thing, and it is always worth cultivating. Just because a majority of critics and experts agree does not mean they are wrong.

Bernard Buffet: painter and poser (The Spectator)

Bernard Buffet: The Invention of the Modern Mega-Artist (Amazon UK)

More from Art Market Monitor

  • The WSJ Talks Ansel AdamsThe WSJ Talks Ansel Adams
  • Christie's Sells ShapazianChristie's Sells Shapazian
  • Thank You to Our SponsorsThank You to Our Sponsors
  • Chinese Imperial Desk Set Sells for $1.4m; Estimate Was $30,000Chinese Imperial Desk Set Sells for $1.4m; Estimate Was $30,000
  • Keno Sells $912,500 Revolutionary Era DocumentKeno Sells $912,500 Revolutionary Era Document
  • Americana ComingAmericana Coming

Filed Under: General

About Marion Maneker

LiveArt

Want to get Art Market Monitor‘s posts sent to you in our email? Sign up below by clicking on the Subscribe button.

  • About Us/ Contact
  • Podcast
  • AMMpro
  • Newsletter
  • FAQ

twitterfacebooksoundcloud
Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
California Privacy Rights
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Advertise on Art Market Monitor