-
Artwork in Focus is the second chapter of the gallery's 'In Focus' series. Every week the gallery presents a viewing room featuring artworks that are available for purchase. This week we are presenting Poète en Exil, 1946, by Romanian born, French artist Victor Brauner. The work is currently on view at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, as part of the exhibition Victor Brauner. Je suis le rêve. Je suis l'inspiration, (18 September 2020 - 25 April 2021).
-
-
After spending part of World War II in the South of France, Brauner had found refuge from the German occupation in the villages of Les Celliers-de-Rousset and Espinasses, both located in the French Hautes-Alpes. There, driven by the scarcity of materials (especially oil paints) Brauner started to explore alternative media to continue to produce work. As a result, during the summer of 1943, Brauner started employing wax in the creation of his visual compositions.
-
In 1945 Brauner had returned to Paris with his second wife Jaqueline and began working at his studio in 2bis Rue Perret. This change of scenario contributed to the evolution of Brauner’s technique, pushing him to develop his experimentations in a new direction. As a result, in the late 1940s, the artist started to use wax in his production predominantly as a patina to cover the colours and shapes of the composition, giving his work a unique finish that he would become renowned for.
-
Victor BRAUNER1903 – 1966Poète en Exil, 1946Wax, pencil and ink on cardboard
Signed and dated lower right: 'Victor Brauner 9.XI.1946'
Titled lower left: 'Poète en Exil'72.7 x 59.5 cm
28 ⅝ x 23 ⅜ in -
Poète en Exil, was realised by spreading hot beeswax on the pictorial surface and successively marking it with incisions which would later be highlighted with ink or black paint. This piece is a stunning example of the marriage between Brauner’s ingenious technique and his subjects of cabalistic inspiration and alchemic nature. The work presents an archetypal, metamorphic body devoid of context and volume, settled in a bi-dimensional perspective. The enigmatic subject is totemic in style, and presents a brightly-coloured, two-headed figure. The top, squared head has two arms holding the sun and the moon (as suggested by the inscriptions in the painting). An additional pair of arms appears below, attached to the subject’s torso, which is covered by a puffed, red top. With its other set of hands, the figure grasps a pair of lips topping a flower stem, and a green and brown folding fan. The subject seems to have been caught in motion, which is suggested through the positioning of the figures feet, with a spurred boot playfully lifted from the ground. In this work Brauner reflects on the mythology and role of the poet. A subject that had been previously explored both in art and literature, is here reinterpreted and introduced using the new visual imagery of Brauner's world. Fascinated by mysticism and the symbols belonging to the Egyptian and Amerindian cultures, Brauner set out to create a series of works called 'Codex du poète' which represent the figure of the poet in a new light. The series captures the different stages of the rebirth of the poet, starting from their exiled condition and ending with their complete rebirth, in a vision remaining strongly influenced by mystical and historical interpretations of the intersection between birth and death.
-
In the years during and after the War, Brauner would often identify himself and his acquaintances with the subjects appearing in his work. In Poète en Exil, Brauner references the leitmotif of the intellectual, exiled for his origins or political views, linking the main protagonist to his friend, the Surrealist poet André Breton. Evidence of this connection can be found in a work on paper realised two years after the completion of Poète en Exil. This work, Pictopoème pour André Breton (1948), presents an almost identical figure and inscriptions to those in Poète en Exil. This correlation enables the viewer to better understand the cosmology and meaning of Brauner's creation. The text included in the drawing remains enigmatic, mimicking the language of a tarot card reading. Brauner had created the form of the Pictopoème in collaboration with Ilarie Voronca, a Romanian avant-garde poet, while the two were working on the October 1924 issue of 75HP, an Avantgarde periodical Romanian publication of Dadaist inspiration. Both Brauner and Voronca agreed on creating a more dynamic aesthetic, which would surpass the division and differences between painting and poetry. It is undeniably fascinating how, more than 20 years after its first creation, Brauner returns to this genre of composition. This new interpretation of the Pictopoème illustrates not only the development of Brauner's practice and interests, but also the ingenuity and brilliance permeating his interpretation of the world in the aftermath of his personal exile experience.
-
-
Biography
Born in 1903 in Piatra Neamt, Romania, Brauner studied at the National School of Fine Arts in Bucharest. Throughout the early years of his career, Brauner experimented with different artistic styles including Modernism, Expressionism, Abstractionism, and Dada. Starting from 1924, while working at the magazine 75HP, founded alongside poet Ilarie Voronca, Brauner started to solidify his artistic language and narrowed the scope of his influences. After moving to Paris in the early 1930s, he met Constantin Brâncusi, and lived in the same building as Yves Tanguy and Alberto Giacometti. In the same period, Brauner became close with André Breton, who wrote the introduction to the catalogue of Brauner's first exhibition in Paris, held at the Pierre Gallery. As a result, Brauner became associated with the Surrealist movement, based on the interests and directions his careers was already taking. While keeping this association in mind, after the World War II, Brauner developed a new imagery, including references to Egyptian hieroglyphics and Tarot card imagery, through which he expressed an original and unique vision of existence.
Today his works are held in many major collections around the world, including: Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
Artwork in Focus: Poète en Exil (1946) by Victor Brauner
Past viewing_room