It is said that asphyxiation brings on a state of hallucinatory intoxication...in which case the 71 year old artist who lay in his sprawling Provencal villa died happy. In the early afternoon of Monday 4 October 1999, wracked with Parkinson's, and unable to paint because of a fall in which he had broken his wrist, Bernard Buffet calmly placed a plastic bag over his head, taped it tight around his neck and patiently waited the few minutes it took for death to arrive. Bernard Buffet:The Invention of the Modern Mega-artist tells the remarkable story of a French figurative painter who tasted unprecedented critical and commercial success at an age when his contemporaries were still at art school. Then, with almost equal suddenness the fruits of fame turned sour and he found himself an outcast. Scarred with the contagion of immense commercial success no leper was more untouchable. He was the first artist of the television age and the jet age and his role in creating the idea of a post-war France is not to be underestimated. As the first of the so-called Fabulous Five (Francoise Sagan, Roger Vadim, Brigitte Bardot and Yves Saint Laurent) he was a leader of the cultural revolution that seemed to forge a new France from the shattered remains of a discredited and demoralized country. Rich in incident Buffet’s remarkable story of bisexual love affairs, betrayal, vendettas lasting half a century, shattered reputations, alcoholism, and drug abuse, is played out against the backdrop of the beau monde of the 1950s and 1960s in locations as diverse as St Tropez, Japan, Paris, Dallas, St Petersburg and New York, before coming to its miserable conclusion alone in his studio.

Bernard Buffet (1928 ndash; 1999) is an artist who was once feted as being one of France's most important painters and the legitimate successor of Picasso. As the 'painter of existentialism' and the man who found the images to describe post-War sensitivities, Buffet's works had a visual presence and renown in West Europe that almost no other painter has achieved since. This immense popularity in the 1950s and 1960s was followed by critics and the institutional art world both rejecting his work most incisively. The vitriolic tone of this rejection intimates that Buffet should be considered someone who was suppressed rather than forgotten. He hardly varied his distinctive, expressive style through the decades and with it Bernard Buffet transformed an inconceivable number of themes, be they violent or trivial, into paintings. Edited by Udo Kittelmann, this is the first monograph on Buffet in many years and it re-positions the artist back into the art world. English, German and French text.

including the destruction of two works in a fire in 1958 - and underscores the resonance of these paintings with the art and artists of the last half-century." --Book Jacket.

The new edition of this insightful work begins with a critical reexamination of the rival Greek and British claims to the Elgin Marbles. That case study identifies the questions that continue to dominate the growing international debate about cultural property policy and which are subsequently explored in a newly expanded array of essays. The work goes on to pay particular attention to the law and policy relating to cultural property export controls and the evolution and development of the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on the Return of Stolen and Illegally Exported Cultural Property. The second part of this highly regarded book addresses a number of contemporary art law issues in essays on counterfeit art, the moral rights of artists, the artist's resale right (droit de suite),the litigation over the Mark Rothko estate, and problems of museum trustee negligence, conflict of interests, and misuse of inside information.

The legend of St. Tropez starts with a dog, a rooster, and a martyr; and it leads to movie stars, world-renowned artists and distinguished writers. Located on the sparkling French Riviera, St. Tropez has enjoyed the spotlight for more than half a century, for better or worse, with celebrities flocking to this idyllic locale for its beaches and a dose of Mediterranean sun. A picturesque oasis, St. Tropez has served as inspiration for a who’s who of notable writers from Françoise Sagan to Colette; as well as renowned artists Paul Signac and Henri Matisse; and even filmmakers. However, St. Tropez would not be the same without then belle du jour Brigitte Bardot, her films and lovers and many other famous couples including Annabel and Bernard Buffet and Bianca and Mick Jagger.

This book describes the collisions between the art world and the law, with a critical eye through a combination of primary source materials, excerpts from professional and art journals, and extensive textual notes. Topics analysed include + the fate of works of art in wartime, + the international trade in stolen and illegally exported cultural property, + artistic freedom, + censorship and state support for art and artists, + copyright, + droit moral and droit de suite, + the artist's professional life and death, + collectors in the art market, + income and estate taxation, + charitable donations and works of art, and + art museums and their collections. The authors are recognised experts in the field who have defined the canon in many aspects of art law.