European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 19, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse                                French critics snub Painter but his works continue to sell by Marilyn August the associated press by most measures Bernard Buffet is France s most successful contemporary Painter earning Small fortunes with each new work and lionized in Distant capitals. Yet at Home he s an artist who gets no respect. Quot should Buffet be burned Quot that was the headline in the Paris based newspaper be Figaro accompanying a review of the artist s latest show a depictions of historic buildings in St. Petersburg Russia. Quot each one of his exhibitions is blasted by the critics Quot wrote Jean Marie Tasset. Quot what s wrong he s got a subscription to Success he s repetitive and produces too  that sums up the French Art establishment s views of the 64-year-old millionaire who has basked in Fame since he was 20 yet never has silenced questions about his stature. Buffet does t worry about the critics most of whom usually ignore his exhibitions. Quot i never read the papers i Don t watch television Quot he said during an interview at his Home in Montmartre. Quot the critics have turned out to be wrong most of the time. Look How they misjudged the  he s Happy that his works sell on the depressed Art Market. He notes that a Day after his show opened six of the 18 St. Petersburg paintings had sold for 1.5 million francs around $300,000. Last year a monumental Canvas portraying a grotesque Clown musician in vivid colors fetched $1 million. The Public is More receptive than the critics. A recent Survey indicated a majority of French people think he s More important than Andy Warhol. In some foreign quarters Buffet is a virtual household name. The Vatican museum devoted an entire room to his Pieta and an ultramodern museum was built in 1973 in Japan to showcase More than 600 of his works. In 1991, Buffet became the first living artist to have a retrospective at the Hermitage and Pushkin museums in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Quot there was t enough empty Wall space to hang All the works and the russian curators were Adamant about not taking Down their Matisse and Gauguin Quot recalled show organizer Hughes Alexandre tar taut. Quot they agreed Only after we threatened to cancel Quot the retrospective Drew More than half a million visitors. Buffet kept Busy during his three week stay in St. Petersburg. Fascinated by the soviet financed restorations of 19th-Century Imperial buildings he immortalized them with his signature thick Black vertical lines and Bright colors. Private collectors have been snapping up Buffet s still lifes cityscape and portraits Ever since he burst onto the scene in 1946 with a compelling self portrait. A year later he earned the critics prize a one of France s top Art awards a with a series marked by the rigid forms and austere tones that became his controversial trademark. Since then he has illustrated Jean Cocteau s la void Humaine decorated a Chapel in Central France and designed sets and costumes for numerous plays and ballets. Buffet averages one major show a year usually devoted to a single subject the circus new York Birds churches and portraits of his wife Annabel. He remains an outspoken advocate of figurative painting. Quot if i paint boats on the sea i want them to float Quot he once said. Quot a Painter who is incapable of drawing a hand a foot or a face has no connection with  his critics regard him As an artist caught in a time Warp a victim of his Early Success. Quot French curators and critics hate me Quot Buffet said. Quot they think i do the same thing Over and Over. But is French artist Bernard Buffet and his self portrait. Bach criticized for composing the same piece or Al Greco for always being the same Quot the hatred which surrounds me is the Best present i be Ever been Given. I owe nothing to anyone. Few can say As  Buffet sometimes is panned for Bla ring distinctions Between the sexes. His portraits even of his wife Are haunting studies of androgyny. Quot for me the important thing is not whether a face looks masculine or feminine Quot he said. Quot i look for intensity in expression the forcefulness of someone s features like the sockets of their eyes the wrinkles on their forehead their Mouth or  Buffet who generally completes a painting every other Day starts his workday at 6 . And is in bed by 9 . He rarely sees friends and takes phone Calls Only from his grown  awakes to advantages of being Picasso a Birthplace by John Russell the new York times one of the More unexpected cultural reversals of the last half Century in Europe is the appearance in Malaga on the Mediterranean coast of Spain not far from Gibraltar of a Large and serious exhibition devoted to paintings drawings etchings and sculptures by Pablo Picasso. Malaga is not exactly on the International exhibition circuit but for this show which is on View through Jan. 11, a splendid new gallery has been created in the remodeler Interior of the archbishop s Palace. To a degree unimaginable even a generation ago great museums and discerning private collectors both in Europe and in the United Stales have Lent to Malaga. Furthermore the show has Exon an original subject and one ideally suited to its location. Picasso Cas co is its title and it it purpose is to examine the Impact upon pm us it a of myth and legend poetry and. A Picasso drama As they had proliferated in ancient times on the Northern shores of the Mediterranean. It is a remarkable turn of events. Not so Long ago solicited lenders would have said no almost without exception to the idea of Malaga. It might have helped that Picasso was born in Malaga. But the City has no history As a major exhibition Center. It was a further obstacle that Picasso left Malaga in 1891 at the age of 10 and never had a Good word to say for it. Return visits in his late teens were Brief and did nothing to endear Malaga to Picasso or him to Malaga. Nor did the authorities of Malaga pay any attention to its most famous son until Picasso was 80, in 1961. On both occasions As we know from John Richardson s recent biography the City fathers travelled from Malaga to Picasso s Home in the South of France in Hopes of presenting him with what they regarded As an appropriate gift. In 1961 he made fun of them. In 1971 he would t even see them. Times have changed however. Gradually and none too soon Malaga has Woken up to the practical advantages of being Picasso s Birthplace. Since Picasso s death in 1973, the existence and the availability to a Large degree of his hugely ramified estate has transformed the situation. Its Sharp locus has evident advantages. The word classic has Many meanings. It can apply to a new regional movement in Picasso s Quot rape of the Sabines Quot can be seen at the Malaga exhibit Art and literature like the one that burgeoned in Spain in the first years of our Century. It can apply to the so called return to order that was formulated by Jean Cocteau and others in Paris after world War i. It can also imply a renewed Delight in the Creek and latin authors to whom so Many european old masters turned for motivation. And it can be used of images of stability and endurance like the great heavy climbed female figures whom Picasso portrayed during his Fontainebleau period around 1921. It can be argued that at certain crucial times in his career Picasso was better away from the Mediterranean. It was not by the Mediterranean but 5,000 feet up in the mountains of Northern Spain in Gogol that his work took an astonishing new turn in 1906. It was in Paris above All that cubism reached apotheosis. It was in Royan on the Atlantic coast of France that he took Stock of the disasters of world War ii in 1940. But All this notwithstanding he took fire to the end of his Days from the notion of Mediterranean Antiquity. Visitors to Malaga can see that in the rape of the Sabines 1963 that has been Lent from the Boston museum of Fine arts. They can also see it in the pen and Ink portrait of a pacifist turned Warrior or vice versa that he made in 1951, the show will not travel. Given the Quality of the Loans and of the Catalon texts it would have been Welcome anywhere. But in Malaga there is to this Day an unhurried and almost noiseless Charm about the a trafficked streets that Needle in and out of the historic Center of the City. Walking along those streets it is easy to imagine Picasso As a Stocky Chunky Little boy who ran Loose along those same Alley s in the 1880s and very possibly peeked in from time to time at the cafes some of which were markedly less respectable than others. From those alleys and those cafe it something important stayed with him. 10 stripes Magazine november 19, 1992