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Victor Brauner exhibit

20 juin 1972
02m 36s
Ref. 00071

Information

Summary :

Portrait and presentation of Victor Brauner's paintings and sculptures on the occasion of the first retrospective of his works at the Musée National d'Art Moderne

Media type :
Vidéo
Broadcast date :
20 juin 1972
Source :
ORTF (Collection: JT 20H )
Personnalité(s) :
Pierre Dumayet / Dominique Bozo / Victor Brauner
Themes :
Places :

Context

A Romanian painter (1903-1966) established in Paris between the two wars, the life of Victor Brauner is in the image of his works, abundant and anti-conventional. It was punctuated by romantic episodes, Spiritualism séances from a Moldavian childhood, passing by French bohemianism with the surrealists - which would cost him an eye during a fight in 1938 - to clandestine living in Provence with René Char during the occupation.

Influenced by Klee, De Chirico and Picasso, Brauner mixed into his paintings social critique and the derision dear to Dadaism, the fanciful universe of surrealists and almost childlike references to the arts premiers. Close to Tanguy, Giacometti and Breton, he was part of the large Romanian community that came to breathe the Parisian Zeitgeist, as the European intellectual and artistic capital. Constantine Brancusi, Emil Cioran, Mircea Eliade, Eugene Ionesco and Tristan Tzara in particular were also there.

If Brauner used different techniques in his paintings, he distinguished himself by using smoke and wax, makeshift materials that he kept from his period of forced reclusion during the Second World War.

Cécile Olive

Transcription

(Music)
Journalist
At the National Museum of Modern Art, a big event: the first Victor Brauner retrospective which we owe to Dominique [Botzo].
(Music)
Journalist
A few rare exhibits over the course of his life weren't enough for us to realize the complexity of his work, which is so abundant and poetic.
(Music)
Journalist
Brauner was born in Romania at the beginning of the century. As a teenager, he was already painting. Curious of all trends, he interested himself in surrealism, and adhered to it in 1932. He freed himself from it in 1949.
(Music)
Journalist
Discreet and solitary, the painter wrote: "It's triumphant that we haven't been submerged by a vulgar fame which removes the mystery from a work that grows through its secrecy".
(Music)
Journalist
Secret painting, enigmatic painting where the subconscious is an important part.
(Music)
Journalist
Premonitory and symbolic images, that illustrate his painful and often terrifying obssessions.
(Music)
Journalist
Exhausted by illness, Brauner paints a final series where his sensitiveness and his humour burst out.
(Music)
Journalist
He died in Paris in 1966.
(Music)