E xecuted in 1983, Bernard Buffet’s Saint-Tropez, Le Port is a culmination of a series of paintings spanning forty years devoted to the glamorous seaside city. The incisive vertical lines of the sailboats’ masts soar upwards towards Provençal terracotta roofs, splicing the composition’s otherwise strong horizontal schematization of boats and seaside flats. Vivid blues and oranges astutely capture the distinctive light of sun-drenched Saint-Tropez.

Born into a humble family in Paris in 1928, Bernard Buffet grew up visiting the Louvre each Sunday with his mother, where he was particularly drawn to Old Master pictures. When abstract painting prevailed in post-war Europe, Buffet exploded onto the art scene with his unique Expressionist figurative pictures. Using strong black lines, sharp brushstrokes, and a limited palette, Buffet painted landscapes, portraits, and still lifes, breathing immense emotional intensity into classical scenes. Buffet’s innovative style garnered critical success and near overnight art-world celebrity.

Buffet began regularly visiting Saint-Tropez in the late 1950s. Though known for the emotional charge of his works, Buffet’s time in Saint-Tropez marked a shift where he sought to engage with a different kind of expressionism—one that balanced the external environment with his internal emotional state. The region, with its alluring beauty, provided a stark contrast to the heavier themes of war and disillusionment that had shaped much of his earliest works. By 1983, Buffet traveled less often from his home in Yveline to Saint-Tropez, but the enchanting harbour scenes of this Mediterranean escape remained with him. Nearly forty years after his first visits to the region, Saint-Tropez, Le Port is a sublime throughline linking Buffet, darling of the art world, to Buffet, the seasoned master of his craft.

“Suddenly everything returned to order and beauty in his series of harbour views...they demonstrate clarity and precision à la Canaletto and a remarkable compositional construction, testifying to an undeniable pleasure in painting… The painter is in full possession of his art and delights in demonstrating his virtuosity.” - John Sillevis, Bernard Buffet 1928-1999, Plomelin, 2008, pp. 45-46