“Don’t close your eyes… I remind you that all these animals are deep inside you.” – Victor Brauner.

Romanian and French painter and graphic artist, mystic and esotericist, a notable member of the surrealist group. Brauner’s work is a fusion of the European avant-garde with exotic archetypes of the indigenous peoples of North and South America.

He spent his youth in Bucharest, in the circle of Romanian decadents. He was interested in spiritualism and participated in local avant-garde movements. In 1924 he founded a magazine of poetry and painting. In 1930, Victor-Brauner settled in Paris and experienced a period of deep crisis, which crystallized in the theme of the gouged out eye (< Self-portrait with a gouged out eye> , 1931).

He meets his compatriot, the sculptor Brancusi, and through Yves Tanguy he comes into contact with the surrealists. In 1934 his exhibition is held in the Pierre Gallery, from that time on he participates in all surrealist exhibitions. He continues to depict a world writhing in agony, shaken by a terrible rebellion, which recalls some of the themes of the German < new objectivity> (< The Door> , 1932, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, < Strange Case> , 1934). In 1935-1938 Victor-Brauner lives in Romania.

By a strange coincidence, in Paris in 1938, during a fight, his eye is knocked out. His paintings acquire a morbid character, foreshadowing the Second World War (< Spell> , 1939). 1940 brings the artist to the Eastern Pyrenees, then to Marseille and the Lower Alps. At this time, he develops his idea of the relationship between the real and the unreal in the image of the Chimera with a double profile (< Mythotomie> , 1942, Paris, private collection). During these years of solitude, he creates a number of esoteric works (a series of drawings < Conglomeros> , a sculpture in the form of a figure with three bodies and one head, 1944. Paris, City Museum of Modern Art; paintings painted in wax).

In 1947, Victor-Brauner moves away from surrealism and creates a series of autobiographical works < Onomatomanies> . In the series < Retractes> (1950), the influence of Matta is noticeable, with whom he painted a number of paintings (< Intervision> , 1955. Paris, National Museum of Modern Art, Centre Pompidou). After 1960, Victor-Brauner’s art became simpler and calmer and found its completion in painting on wood (< Mothers’ Festival> . Sables d’Olonne Museum). In 1982, Mrs. Victor-Brauner donated a number of the artist’s works to the National Museum of Modern Art, the Pompidou Centre in Paris.