Bernard Buffet first discovered the ocean in the 1930s during a stay in Saint-Cast-Le-Guildo. He returned to this village in the Côtes-d’Armor many times, enjoying happy days there with his family.

Later, it was the Mediterranean that fuelled the painter’s imagination, becoming the backdrop for his most important love stories. He frequently visited the French Riviera with Pierre Bergé, his partner from 1950 to 1958. Not long after, he fell in love with Annabel in the Saint-Tropez area, where the couple eventually married.

In the 1960s, Bernard Buffet became a father and decided to settle his young family in Brittany, hoping to offer them the same quality of life he had experienced there in his own childhood. Nevertheless, he maintained his connection to the Mediterranean region: in the mid-1980s, he made his permanent home in the Var, where he lived for the rest of his life.