In Portrait of an Artist, it’s unclear if Bernard Buffet bears his teeth for an anxious mood or because he has something caught between them.

But it’s got to be the former, because his teeth look like the kind a dentist makes an ad out of, even if they are rigidly square. The painting even has that clean austerity of a dentist office. It's awkward and unsettling, and that is largely intentional.

Bernard Buffet was an expressionist who worked to demonstrate post-war mentality in the decade following World War II. To add further credit to his teeth, he was a passionate follower of existential philosophers, such as Jean-paul Sartre and Albert Camus.

Portrait of the Artist, like many of his paintings from this period, features a gray scale palette. Blacks and white tones are emphasized, which lends a heavy, industrial coloring to the work. In contrast, the subject matter is tongue-in-cheek. Buffet shows himself painting a painting he has already signed (perhaps it is a replica of what we the viewers see). Yet this too feels irresistibly morose, like the memory of a long gone nightmare, all because of that anxious grin.

There are numerous versions of this painting, all slightly different. One has an all black background, another has him wearing a dark shirt (his wardrobe was evidently voluminous). Each painting has nearly the same composition, however, and interestingly enough, this composition was one Buffet returned to throughout his life. Later on, when he was much older, he painted a similar portrait, but this time with a full beard, balding head, and a stark overhead light shining towards the canvas.

It appears that Buffet wanted to show us that painting was an inextricable part of himself, perhaps more important than his smile, with the paintbrush as an eleventh finger. Buffet was a painter through and through, never stopping until his death.