Acclaimed his for portrayals of the deserts and mountains of the Southwest, Conrad Buff made a unique contribution to the artistic tradition of California. Largely self-taught as a painter, he developed a unique approach, combining impressionism’s concern for light, color and the depiction of regional scenery with a modern technique rooted in Post-Impressionism. His landscapes, ranging from the delicate pointillist works of the 1910s and 20s, to the bold, vigorously-painted canvases he turned to later, contributed to his reputation as one of the most individualistic artists of his milieu.
The artist was born Konrad Buff II in Speicher, Switzerland, a small village in the canton of Appenzell, not far from the city of St. Gallen. His father, Konrad, was a skilled embroiderer, while his mother Anna (née Bruderer), was a factory worker. Buff and his family resided in Speicher until 1895, when they moved to the town of Thurgau, where Buff’s father operated a general store before finally purchasing a farm.
In 1900, Buff became an apprentice in his uncle’s bakery. He also began sketching in his spare time. Thinking that he might follow in his father’s footsteps, he studied laced design at the School of Arts and Crafts in St. Gallen from 1900 to 1903. It was there, while making drawings of flowers, that he developed the fine draftsmanship that would serve him in his later career as a painter.
In 1904, Buff went to Munich, intending to enroll at the prestigious Royal Academy. However, his funds ran short, forcing his return to St. Gallen. He remained there until 1905 when he emigrated to America, probably changing the spelling of his first name from Konrad to Conrad as he passed through Ellis Island.
Buff initially went to Wisconsin, which had a large population of Swiss emigrants, and spent a period of time working on a dairy farm. Following this, he was engaged in various forms of employment in the Midwest, ranging from sheep herding to map-making and railroad construction, before making his way to Seattle, where he worked as a house painter. By 1907, he was in Los Angeles, supporting himself by painting houses and designing decorative stenciling for interiors.
At some point between 1910 and 1913, Buff briefly attended the Art Students League of Los Angeles, where he was taught by the painter Rex Slinkard. Around this time, he also attended William A. Paxton’s drawing classes at Los Angeles High School. Buff also began painting landscapes, turning his attention to the local countryside. Eschewing the loose, broken brushwork of impressionism, the dominant aesthetic in California at that time, he developed an advanced pointillist style, covering the surfaces of his canvases with a network of tiny brushstrokes.
In 1917, Buff assisted the painter Edgar Payne on some murals for the Congress Hotel in Chicago. Payne subsequently invited him on a sketching trip to the High Sierras, an experience that inspired Buff’s enduring penchant for desert and mountain scenery: thereafter, he made regular sketching trips to Utah, Arizona, and elsewhere in the Southwest in search of subjects for his brush.
Buff’s style continued to evolve as the years wore on. By 1940, he had moved towards a greater degree of simplification, using broader brushstrokes, and favoring highly structured yet reductive compositions. He continued to refine his aesthetic in the ensuing decades-to the extent that his late paintings took on a near-abstract quality.
In addition to his activity as an easel painter, Buff was also a noted muralist. During the 1920s and 30s, he produced decorations for private homes and public buildings throughout California, including the William Penn Hotel in Whittier, the Guarantee Building and Loan Association of Los Angeles, and the Southern California Edition Company Building in Los Angeles. He also took up lithography, and eventually color printmaking, achieving national renown as a graphic artist. Buff also illustrated several children’s books written by his wife, Mary, a writer, painter, and former associated curator at the Los Angeles Museum of Science, History, and Art, whom he married in 1922. The couple often traveled to such diverse locales as Europe, Central America, and the Orient as part of their research.
Buff had numerous one-man shows throughout his career, including exhibitions at the Los Angeles Museum (1921, 1940) and the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco (1933), and at commercial venues such as the Illsley Galleries and the Stendhal Galleries in Los Angeles. He died in Laguna Hills, California in March of 1975.
Buff’s paintings are represented in many public and private collections, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Examples of his graphic work can be found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; and at London’s British Museum. A major monograph, which includes an examination of Buff’s considerable accomplishments within the context of twentieth century art in California, was published in 2000.¹
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¹ Will South, The Art and Life of Conrad Buff (West Hollywood, California, 2000).
