This autumn, Opera Gallery London brings Bernard Buffet back into the conversation with La France de Bernard Buffet, the most significant presentation of his work in the city for more than fifty years. Opening on 3 October and running until 2 November 2025, the exhibition aligns with Frieze Week and brings together over twenty paintings made between 1951 and 1998. It revisits the painter’s lifelong dialogue with France and his complex relationship which involved negotiating ideas about culture, geography, and post-war identity.
Buffet’s name carries somewhat paradoxical mindsets in both his past and our present artistic realm, balancing admiration with controversy. In the 1950s he was one of the most recognisable figures in European art, celebrated for his sharp lines, austere faces, and haunting depictions of modern life. His imagery mirrored a nation trying to rebuild itself, translating the weight of collective memory into visual form. As the decade progressed however, his fame or rather infamy began to cloud critical perception. The sheer force of his vision of constructing his homeland as he wanted it to be seen, in all its possibly irreconcilable contradictions endure.
The exhibition divides Buffet’s work into three threads: Landscapes, Cityscapes, and Seascapes. Each section reflects a different vantage point on France and quite literally takes the viewer across Buffet’s geographical footsteps. The city’s ordered facades, the vast stretches of countryside, and the quiet coastal horizons together form a portrait of a country once again contradictory, as seen through the eyes of a man both of and apart from it.
Nicholas Foulkes, co-curator of the show and author of Bernard Buffet: The Invention of the Modern Mega-Artist, describes the exhibition as an attempt to broaden public understanding of the painter. “Few people can see beyond Bernard Buffet’s signature,” Foulkes says. “I hope this exhibition reveals the diversity and technical brilliance of an artist who remains controversial to this day.”
Buffet’s art draws from a deep sense of observation. His figures and buildings possess an angular intensity that recalls both classical structure and modern unease. He once said, “I do not try to reproduce the world, but to recreate it in a manner that is more true to my own.” That attitude defines his portrayal of France: a country seen not through nostalgia but through introspection.
Paris remained a central subject throughout his career. In Place des Vosges (1960), Buffet renders the historic square with architectural precision, each line taut and deliberate. The work captures the rhythm of urban life without sentimentality, portraying the city as both stage and organism. In contrast, the sea seemed to offer Buffet a space of quiet distance. Paintings such as Île de Port-Cros (1953) turn toward muted colour and solitude, while his late works from Domaine de la Baume in Provence, including La Baume, Les iris, la maison, les genêts (1997), show a slower and more reflective pace.
Giulia Lecchini, Deputy Director of Opera Gallery London, notes that this exhibition allows audiences to see Buffet’s France as more than a backdrop. “We invite viewers to rediscover Buffet through the lens of France, a country that was both his muse and mirror. This theme helps us understand how his art evolved alongside changes in national identity and cultural meaning,” she explains.
Buffet was born in Paris in 1928 and entered the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts at fifteen. By twenty, he had already won the Prix de la Critique, marking the start of a career that would span half a century. His works now reside in major collections including the Centre Pompidou, the Tate, and the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo. A museum dedicated to him in Japan reflects his international reach.
La France de Bernard Buffet positions the artist not as a relic of post-war angst but as a figure whose vision continues to resonate in the language of modern art. His angular forms and muted tones still speak to questions of identity, belonging, and the shape of a nation in transition. For Opera Gallery London, this exhibition offers both reflection and renewal, and ultimately, a chance to see Buffet’s France through the clarity of the present moment.
