VICTOR BRAUNER (1903-1966)

Brauner left his homeland of Romania in 1930 and settled in Paris, where he became deeply involved with the Dada and Surrealist review UNU and worked alongside Constantin Brancusi, Yves Tanguy and Alberto Giacometti. Officially joining the Surrealist movement in 1932, Brauner derived much inspiration from the flatness of folk art, as well as from themes and spiritualism and the occult--intrests inherited at a young age from his father. In 1961, the year the present lot was painted, Brauner moved to the village of Varengeville, where he acquired a large house next to André Breton's manor which he called "Athanor" after the alchemist's furnace.
Of Brauner's oeuvre, Susan Davidson has written, "An erudite man of high intellect, Brauner made paintings that often have a naïve, fold art quality. Primarily focusin on figuration--whether human, animal, occult or mythological beings--his works conversely are often realized in boldly colored abstract shapes permeated by expanses of decorative two-dimensional patterning. While his paintings often seem thematically simple and straightforward, invoking images from a child's storybook, they are in fact underpinned by a lexicon of symbolism and archetypes that weaves an intricate tapestry of meaning" (Victor Brauner, Surrealist Hieroglyphs, exh. cat., The Menil Collection, Houston, 2001, p. 9).