ARCADIA


Bernard Buffet (centre) enjoyed fame and wealth rather more than most artists


PLEASURE DIVIDEND


A SUMPTUOUS BUFFET


Nick Foulkes


IT IS FRIEZE TIME again, the great a quo ad quem moment of the British arts calendar, when the caravanserai of the world art mar- ket descends upon London. I always make a point of visiting Frieze Masters, where I pass the time looking at things that I cannot af- ford, presented by people who know full


well that I am a tyre kicker but graciously go through the charade of talking to me as if I were a real client. The art market is a circus like any other,


and when the circus comes to town a sort of carnival mood takes over the art-related are- as of the capital. Dealers are busy dressing their windows, displaying their wares, and doing their best to carry off that most deli- cate of alchemical conversions: the transfor- mation of art lovers into art buyers. It is to this noble end that I find myself in


the slightly unusual position of being part of the window dressing. Last year a friend, who was then working


at Opera Gallery, asked me if I would care to curate an exhibition. My curatorial creden- tials are scanty. In 2015, I put together an ex-


hibition of British tailoring at the British am- bassador’s residence in Washington. I believe it even made the morning news. (If Lord Mandelson’s successor is reading this, which I’m sure they will be, I’d be quite hap- py to reprise the show.) For an instant, the thought did flit across


my mind that Opera might have decided to get into the male apparel business. But no, my friend explained that she wanted me to curate an exhibition of Bernard Buffet’s paintings, which is not as much of mad idea as it might appear. In addition to the day job of sauntering round the West End’s tailors’ shops and sampling cigars with Edward Sa- hakian of Davidoff, I have a side hustle as an author, and in 2016 I published a biography of Buffet. On the whole it was looked on


ALAMY


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