Bernard Buffet was a French artist born in 1928 and died in 1999. He became interested in painting at an early age and in 1943, when he was fifteen, he passed the entrance exam to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His attachment to figurative painting at a time when abstract painting was at its height is what sets him apart. He was even part of the anti-abstraction group L'Homme-témoin, created in 1948, whose aim was to promote paintings of social realism. His work has that characteristic touch that makes his paintings recognizable to the amateur: they are characterized by this graphic and angular line, the forms are elongated, a style that is found even in his signature. This style gives a melancholic and sober character to his works. He was Pierre Bergé's partner, then Annabel Schwob's, who became his wife and his muse until the end of his life. Stricken with Parkinson's disease, Buffet became unable to paint and decided to commit suicide by asphyxiation in his studio in 1999.