Bernard Buffet: Au Bord de la Rivière

Renowned for his distinctively graphic style and elongated forms, Bernard Buffet was one of the 20th century’s most prolific artists, believed to have painted over 8,000 artworks in his lifetime.

Buffet created uniquely flat yet expressive scenes that captured his penchant for melancholia and that of a post-war France. Gaining prominence early in his career (first exhibiting at the age of 20), Buffet, alongside other young, pivotal tastemakers such as Yves Saint Laurent, helped shape the visual aesthetic of mid-century France.

Championed as a landscape painter in 1953, Buffet’s depictions of quaint towns and villages across France reignited a sense of cultural pride. Poet and leading voice of the French Surrealists, Louis Aragon, famously praised Buffet’s exhibition in a multi-issue review published in Les Lettres Françaises.

“For Aragon, Buffet’s show was nothing less than a complete renewal and revival of the tradition of the French landscape: ‘One can say that he takes his place in the great lineage of French landscape painters from Daubigny to Utrillo, via Corot, Courbet, Boudin and Claude Monet’…Buffet was not just an extraordinarily accomplished young painter, but a painter of whom the nation could and should be proud.”[1]

Although created nearly a decade after the critically acclaimed exhibition in Paris, Au bord de la rivière equally displays Buffet’s talent for capturing serene, suburban landscapes. Using a limited watercolour palette, Buffet encapsulates the verdant Mayenne riverbank and the mirror-like reflection of the architecture on the surface of the water. Given the similarities in setting and composition, the watercolour also reads as a study for the oil on canvas painting La rivière aux environs de Mayenne – held previously in the collection of the late CEO of Power Corporation of Canada, Paul Desmarais Sr.

In each work, Buffet offers a different perspective of the Mayenne River, with the watercolour emphasizing the meandering nature of the body of water and the work on canvas highlighting the river’s ability to capture and reflect light. Au bord de la rivière ultimately provides insight into the prolific Buffet’s process and manipulation of colour and light within the realm of his graphic, shadowless vignettes.

[1] Foulkes, Nicholas. Bernard Buffet: The Invention of the Modern Mega-Artist. Random House, 2016.

We are pleased to offer Au bord de la Rivière in our spring 2025 Canadian & International Fine Art auction.

About the Auction

Our major spring auction of Canadian and International Fine Art features an exceptional collection of important works by noted Canadian and international artists including Frederick Banting, Jack Bush, Clarence Gagnon, William Kurelek, Jean Paul Lemieux, J.W. Morrice, William Perehudoff, Takao Tanabe, Bernard Buffet, Jean Dufy, Francisco Zúñiga, Larry Poons, Jules Olitski, and many more.

The auction is offered online May 8 – 29, 2025.

You must be registered to bid in this auction. Please register here.

public previews

Public previews at our Toronto gallery located at 100 Broadview Avenue, are available:

Wednesday, May 21 from 10 am to 7 pm
Thursday, May 22 from 10 am to 5 pm
Friday, May 23 from 10 am to 5 pm
Saturday, May 24 from 12 pm to 4 pm
Sunday, May 25 from 12 pm to 4 pm
Monday, May 26 from 10 am to 5 pm
Tuesday, May 27 from 10 am to 5 pm
Wednesday, May 28 from 10 am to 5 pm
Thursday, May 29 from 10 am to 12 pm

Or by appointment.

Contact us to find out more.