Oil on canvas

100.3×81.5 cm. 39 1/2×32 1/8 in

Signed in Japanese, dated and titled in English on reverse

LITERATURE
2011, Yoshitomo Nara： The Complete Works Volume I, Bijutsu Publishing House, Tokyo, p.123
PROVENANCE
E. David et M. Garnier Gallery, Paris
Previous Collection of Myriam Schasseur family, New York
9 Nov 2010, Bonhams New York Autumn Auction, Lot 68
Private Collection, Asia
This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed and issued by Maurice Garnier.

Innovation Begins in Rebellion, but Revolution Finds Its Roots in Action
Shozo Shimamoto’s Violent Aesthetics
An Abundance of Destructive Color Splashes has Never been Never Seen Before
I believe that the first thing we should do is to set paint free from the paintbrush. We need to revive the paint and let it live. 
- Shozo Shimamoto
Shozo Shimamoto began to engage in abstract art creation during college. Before the official formation of Gutai Art Association, he had created numerous avant-garde works, for example his 1949 Holes series, for which he painted on multiple layers of newspapers pasted onto the canvas and then made holes to reveal the different layers. It is quite coincidental that halfway across the globe, in Italy, Lucio Fontana started a very similar study that same year, which later resulted in the “Holes” and “Slashes” categories of his Concetto spaziale （Spatial Concepts）.
In 1956, Shimamoto focused on the relationship between “destruction” and “construction” and created something termed “bottle crash” paintings, for which he used to hurl glass bottles filled with paint onto large canvases laid out on a hard surface. As the bottles shattered, the bursts of paint created vigorously dazzling and extraordinary patterns that were full of vitality and that went well beyond flat and plain coating and patterns. Such works were truly an embodiment of the words of Gutai Art Association founder Jiro Yoshihara, who said that the art could “fix the explosive state into the paint itself.”
Invitation from the Palace of Genoa
50 years later, at 2：00 in the afternoon on November 13, 2008, Shimamoto （then in his 70s） was standing in the gothic lobby of the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa. For hundreds of years since the 13th century, every ordinance issued from this site had a tremendous impact on the overall military and government affairs throughout Europe and Asia. Along the bold and unrestrained sounds of the Fluxus musician Philip Corner’s melody, Shimamoto used both hands to pick up bottles filled with paint given to him by his assistants and students, and under an onslaught of spotlights and flashes coming from multiple cameras, he seemed to have gone back to those passionate moments from half a century before. Nothing was held back as he hurled bottles onto a stage decorated by white silk fabric, and the result was his colorful work entitled Governor’s Palace No. 35. It is difficult not to remember the verses from the Atsumori chapter of Kouwakamai （a Japanese recitative dance）： “50 years of life seem like a short dream when compared with the eternity of the world. Since we have been born into this world, who can escape from death？” This work undoubtedly gives a testimony to the artist’s brilliance and is a firm embodiment of his life-long creativity.

The End of Splendor in French Painting
Bernard Buffet’s Bonquet de Zinnias dans un Vase
A Different Kind of Loneliness
The works of Bernard Buffet, widely recognized as one of the most important French artists of the 20th Century and a contentious representative of post-war expressionism, were invariably imbued with a strong sense of personal style and advocated for representational socialism. Buffet painted scenes from cities or the countryside, the Catholic baptism or Crucifixion of Jesus Christ or other religious stories, sad looking absurdly funny clowns and motifs he became fascinated with during his life such as insects and matadors. All were depicted with thick black lines packed together and intercrossing as if carved with a knife. In addition, the use of grey-white monochrome colors tempered the sense of vertical depth and distance, creating relief visuals replete with stories that both resembled cartoons and the display walls of ancient palaces. However, with the active promotion of the Ministry of Culture and art critics, post-war France was dominated by abstract art. Buffet rejected abstraction in favor of his own inimical style, and in so doing expressed for later generations the dejection, gloom, anger and sense of helplessness felt by French youth in the post-war years. He also introduced an ineffable sense of loneliness and the emotionally moving colors of dramatic romantic expressionism to the post-war art of France, which made a lasting impression on his audience.
World Renowned Maverick
Buffet lived a life and forged an artistic career that was as unorthodox and full of contradictions as that of a character in a primetime TV drama. The artist was born in Paris in 1928, as France’s Années Folles （the “crazy years of the 1920s） came to an end. In the years after World War I and the Great Depression that followed, Buffet grew up in France occupied by Nazi Germany, an era in which French pride was trampled underfoot and friends or relatives could disappear overnight. One year after the end of WWII, Buffet’s mother died from cancer an event that transformed the handsome artist into a melancholic individual of few words, who was straight-forward, frank, irritable and a man of intense passions.
Buffet became famous as a young man, but he also lost the only person he trusted just as his life as an artist started. Before his 30s, he was being mentioned along with Yves Saint Laurent as one of the five rising stars of the new generation of post-war French artists. In addition, the sale of his paintings made him a “millionaire painter” and wealthy enough to attending public events in his own chauffer-driven Rolls-Royce Silver, which incurred the jealousy of fellow artists. Buffet had a relationship with renowned banker Pierre Bergé whom he left after eight years, immediately taking up with singer, fashion model and author Annabel Schwob. After falling in love, the couple remained together for 30 years, until discovering he had Parkinson’s disease, Buffet ended his own life.
The French art world remains divided over Buffet, a man who engendered love and hate in equal measure. Having found fame and fortune, he is also a testament to the statement “When a tree stands out in the forest, the wind will destroy it.” The French Minister of Culture André Malraux in the government of Charles De Gaulle from 1958-1969, sought to use abstract art to remake the culture of France and was at constant loggerheads with representational painter Buffet. At the same time, the artist who was broadly popular with the public and became widely known for his rebellious character remained something of an idol for his own generation and those who followed, including the daughter of Pablo Picasso. As a result, Picasso was of one mind with Malraux on the subject of Buffet and sought to obstruct him officially and professionally. In consequence, despite Buffet’s increasing popularity in France as he entered middle age, art museums and schools gradually began to hold fewer and fewer exhibitions of his works, a situation that did not start to change until 2010. In 2015, the Centre Georges Pompidou place five works by Bernard Buffet on the same wall as masterpieces by Henri Matisse, Georges Braque and Fernand Léger.
The French do really have one good painter, Buffet. – Andy Warhol
However, there were always supporters of Bernard Buffet in the French art world, the most widely praised of whom was legendary art dealer Maurice Garnier who was friends with the artist for 50 years. In 1977, Garnier decided to let go the other artists he sponsored and give Buffet his full support. For the next 30 years he organized an annual exhibition of the artist’s new art and worked assiduously to extend Buffet’s renown beyond France, resulting in a series of exhibitions at Seedamm Cultural Center, Zurich （1983）, The Odakyu Museum, Tokyo （1987）, Pouchkine Museum, Moscow （1991） and Musée des Beaux-arts de Kaoshiung （Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts）, Taiwan （1996）.
Although increasingly frustrated in France, Buffet remained popular overseas. In the 1970s he was described as the only painter in France by US pop artist Andy Warhol. In 1973, the first Bernard Buffet art museum in the world opened in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, permanently disp permanently displ laying more than 1, 000 works by the artist. Moreover, the popularity of Buffet in Japan had a knock on effect throughout East Asia resulting in a Bernard Buffet craze in 1980. Although this is an indication that art does not recognize national borders, it is also true that the metaphorical sentiment expressed in Buffet’s art also coincides with an introverted modesty that underscores the cultivation of moral character in an Asian context.
Life Love
Buffet is known for focusing on motifs he encountered in life, using his classical methodology to depict the people and things around him as metaphors for his thoughts and reflections. As such, the themes of his paintings invariably reflect a new experience he had or nostalgic sentiment, with objects such as ashtrays, lamps, and insect specimens frequently featuring in his paintings. Over time these constantly change, sometimes appearing more often than others. Flowers are the only motif that Buffet used consistently, from meeting the love of his life Annabel Schwob until his death.
On the morning of his 30th birthday Buffet offered the following poetic eulogy to flowers： Flowers, are woven into our lives with every twist and turn of emotional events. Scarcely born, before we’re even aware of it, we inhale the subtle scents of bouquets offered to the woman who bought us into the world. The painting Bonquet de Zinnias dans un Vase was completed at the age of 35. In it he showcases 10 brightly colorful Zinnia in a spotless white vase.
In Western culture a person can convey his or her feelings through the number of flowers they send. In such a situation ten is considered particularly apropos. For example, the term “Perfect 10” can be used to mean a match made in heaven and 10 is often used as the perfect score in sports. The Zinnia has many different names in Chinese - Bairiju, Tianzhu Mudan, Xixianglian, Yangshaoyao and Shaoju. It is a brightly colored and beautiful flower often seen in gardens in the West and commonly used to decorate homes. In 1963, Buffet and Schwob were inseparable, a sentiment that can be seen in his new painting at that time le Torero. She sat as his model for the painting, transforming the bullfighter into the embodiment of the love between a husband and wife. As with Buffet’s words on flowers, Bouquet de Zinnias dans un Vase （Lot29） was given without words.
In Bonquet de Zinnias dans un Vase Buffet uses gentler black lines to depict a milky-white modern Sevres flower vase with turquoise lines at the side, highlighting the white porcelain high temperature fired ceramic piece. After decorating the vase with several layers of intercrossing turquoise, viewers can see a rare of example of Buffet using ocher, dark orange and orange pigment to directly portray the flower petals rather than black lines. In this way, he creates 10 brilliant and blooming Zinnia, overflowing with the lingering charm of fiery red lips. At the time, Schwob had a short haircut and Buffet was enamored of her hairstyle and heroic character, so as we reflect on the melancholic artist at work one cannot help but smile at the idea of this adorable woman covering his face with 10 kisses the day before.

Price estimate:
HKD: 1, 250, 000 - 1, 850, 000
USD: 160, 300 - 237, 200

Auction Result:
HKD: 2,006,000