Enjoying immense popularity during the 1950s, Bernard Buffet continued to paint prolifically until his death in 1999. Continuing to hone and refine his distinctive aesthetic, Bernard Buffet was respected and honored by renowned artists the world over. American Pop Art icon Andy Warhol once venerated Buffet as his personal favorite artist, referring to Buffet as the “last famous painter”. Pablo Picasso’s own children once famously hounded Buffet for autographs in the presence of their affronted father, leading to a long-standing rivalry with the Spanish cubist master. Chosen by 100 critics in 1955 as the most impressive young painter in the world, Buffet’s dominating and striking visual style graced solo exhibitions, museum walls, and major retrospectives the world over.

Continuing to paint throughout the following decades, Buffet’s existentialist artistic ideals lead to an exploration of the mundane and common through continued depictions of still-life scenes. While using subjects inherently devoid of sentiment, Buffet nevertheless continued to imbue his paintings with an overwhelming sense of confrontation and angst which had characterized his work from the onset.

Thin, spindled lines continued to spread across his somber compositions, imparting the sensation of underlying discomfort which had struck such a resonating chord with the post-war generation throughout Europe. Over the following decades, Buffet continued to explore his distinctive aesthetic, creating scenes which began to subtly blend the serene with the discordant. Throughout his career, the artist employed flamboyantly lurid colors and illustrative thick lines to emphasize the figures and emotions within his paintings, combining soft washes and gentle strokes with heavy deposits of bright color or dark black.

Deux Truites Jaunes demonstrates the continuing refinement of the artist’s signature aesthetic. The strong, bold lines of black accentuate the severe qualities of the arrangement, filling the composition with sharp, angular junctions. Emphasizing visual contradictions, the straight, linear lines on both the fish and drinking glass converge with softer curves, both carrying the same weighted stroke. Providing further contrast, Buffet constructs the leafy fronds of green garnish with airy, thin strokes of alternating black and green. While employing light washes of vibrant yellow, complemented by the rich tone of the underlying greenery, the palette still exudes a bleakness characteristic of Buffet’s enduring aesthetic. The harsh and cheerless wash of whites and grays emphasize the brashness of the colorful display, casting the luminous arrangement in a garish and lurid light. Completing the linearly focused composition, Buffet’s distinctive signature prominently decorates the top center of the canvas. Although painted nearly two decades following the height of his celebrity status, Deux Truites Jaunes maintains the individual aesthetic which distinguished Bernard Buffet’s artistic stardom in the 1950s.