The famous and acclaimed yet controversial

Bernard Buffet (1928-1999) forged his own oeuvre

with dramatic determination. Even when using

the greasepaint of a clown he forcefully etched

both life and death into his art, as witnessed

by the photographs published here.

This book was sparked by a three-way encounter

in 1958 between an artist, a woman, and a photographer:

Luc Fournol, then doing a photo spread on the seaside

resort of Saint-Tropez, introduced Bernard to Annabel.

Now, forty-five years later, Annabel-who became

Bernard's wife and life-long companion-comments

on pictures taken over the years by Luc, who

remained their loyal friend. Because the secret life

of an artist truly resides in his work, the mysteries

of the studio can be harder to penetrate than

the mysteries of the boudoir. Only a close friend could

be privy to the struggle of an artist always plagued

by anxiety, a struggle that yielded the first portrait of

Annabel, the Passion of Christ, figures of the damned

from Dante's "Inferno", and his ever-risky self-portraits.

Here the photos by Fournol and Benjamin Auger

not only reflect a life divided between warm intimacy

and creative tension, they also portray the sincerity

with which Buffet put his name on the line with

every painting. For although Buffet may have made

mistakes, he never cheated. When he put an end

to his own life on October 4, 1999, he knew he was

leaving the ring victoriously, for he never sacrificed

his freedom or the values that made everything

worthwhile.

As a childhood friend and close witness to the events

that marked Buffet's life, Fournol is better placed

than any other photographer to produce this portrait

of an artist confronting his oeuvre.