Victor Brauner *

(Piatra Neamtz, Rumania 1903–1966 Paris) ‘Interconnaisance’, signed and dated Victor Brauner 1961, on the reverse titled, signed and dated Victor Brauner 1961, oil on canvas, 101 x 81 cm (PP)

Photo certificate: Samy Kinge, Paris, 9 January 2000

Provenance:
Alexander Iolas Gallery, New york (on the reverse 2 labels);
Private Collection, Europe

Victor Brauner, born in Rumania, spent the early years of his youth in Vienna. From 1925 he mainly worked in Paris, where he made the acquaintance of yves Tanguy, who introduced him to the Surrealists. Influenced by Giorgio de Chirico and Max Ernst, as well as Picasso and Klee, Brauner found his own visual language in forms of a magical nature, which can often be read as a metamorphosis between human and animal.
Victor Brauner employed illustionistic means to permit the observer to experience the world of dreams, in order to make it seem more credible. In the painting offered here, dating from 1961, figural elements and animal forms are combined in a fantastic manner. Eyes look out of the image, and brown legs appear to move in dance. Earth tones come up against blue, green and violet hues, placed by Brauner in colour fields on the canvas. The marked flatness is, however, counterbalanced by the depiction of dance movements. Victor Brauner invites one to dream oneself into his composition, and to allow oneself to be lead into this other world by means of the magic wielded by the depicted protagonists.

Specialist: Mag. Patricia Pálffy