Guest Artist

To give an added fillip to its annual luncheon, France's Goncourt Academy (which meets this week to bestow its award and bestsellerdom on a French author) has invited an artist to come make its family portrait. When news of the artist's name was announced, Le Figaro Litter air e issued a warning: "Under the circumstances, it will be necessary to banish the bottles and partridges from the tables, for the painter honored by the Goncourt does not like rosy cheeks, but prefers gaunt figures bent over plates garnished with fish vertebrae." The guest artist: Bernard Buffet, 27, France's most popular painter (TIME, March 21), whose portraits depict the leanest and hungriest figures since Picasso's Frugal Repast.

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