After the end of World War II, a young painter blazed like a comet across the world of French art. His colors, black contours, incised like scars from wounds in the picture plane, the deeply creased faces and thin, elongated figures, the uncanny placement of objects, the towns with no people . . . his paintings were filled with the emptiness and nihilism of the post-war period. Once seen, they were unforgettable. This style, established before Bernard Buffet turned twenty, made him a truly “one-and-only” artist. Every work of his all through his life as a painter was shot through with his “Buffet style.” We would like you to savor all the flavors of Buffet’s art, life, and character.

Canvases covered with lines that resemble scratches, black contour lines, or sharply stabbing vertical lines—these lines were the way that Bernard Buffet expressed himself. The lines are, however, in no way uniform. When did Buffet’s lines become manifest, and what did the artist try to express with these lines? This exhibition attempts to trace Buffet’s life guided by his expressive use of lines.

Bernard Buffet had been known as a "figurative" painter. But when asked in an interview, “Did you ever think you’d like to try abstract painting?” Buffet answered,
All works are “abstract.”
As in figurative art, it must be understandable by everyone. People must find something there, in aesthetic terms.
All arts are “abstract” in this sense.
What do we find in Buffet’s work? Let us address each work, face to face, studying the “things that have form” that Buffet depicted, and see what we can find there.

Twenty years have passed since Buffet died at age 71. While there are still those of the older generation who remember Buffet, the painter, from the time when he took the world by storm, many younger people are now discovering him for the first time. This exhibition reflects on “the Buffet phenomenon,” while carefully reevaluating his work.

This exhibition showcases works from Buffet's annual "themed exhibitions" to provide an overview of the artist's work.

This is the second version of the exhibition "Buffet and the 1940s and 1950s - Art Confronts the Absurd".

This is the first exhibition ever to be held in Japan focusing on Robert Doisneau's famous series of "Portraits of the Artists". Almost 140 works exhibited in the exhibition also include "the classic" images of the photographer selected by Atelier Robert Doisneau.