Notice: the museum will be closed from November 8 through November 24, 2023, for the exhibition change. Please make a note of your visit schedule.

Bernard Buffet (1928-1999) developed his own style in the late 1940s, using hard black outlines and an almost monochromatic palette. His paintings not only surprised, disturbed, and shocked viewers, but were also highly regarded for their ability to reflect the minds of people exhausted by World War II. Buffet’s popularity and fame peaked at the end of the 1950s when he was considered by many to be a painter on par with Picasso. In the 1960s, however, Buffet’s reputation began to decline among art critics. He was criticized for his choice of even bad-taste subjects and his insistence on figurative painting that went against the trends of the times, and he was ostracized from the museum walls of Paris even while retaining his popularity with the public.
The anti-Buffet period lasted until the exhibition Bernard Buffet: Rétrospective was held at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 2016, a full 17 years after his death. The long-awaited retrospective was a notable event both for the legacy of the artist and the history of postwar French art criticism.

The 2020s are the “Age of Buffet’s Revival.
This exhibition, held to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the museum, will reconsider the genius of Buffet, one of the leading French painters of the 20th century, through works from the 1940s to his later years.