Victor Brauner

Do you have a piece by Victor Brauner in your possession and would like to know its value? Our Experts will carry out a free appraisal of your piece, provide you with an estimate of the market price, and then help you to sell at the best possible price.

Victor Brauner’s quotation, estimate and price

Price of a drawing: 2,800 – 20,000 €.

Estimation of a painting: 25,000 – 1 850,000 €.

Estimated cost of a lamp: 220 – 3,500 €.

Price of a sculpture: 1,300 – 47,000 €.

If you would like to have a work by Brauner appraised, our experts will take care of everything.

Victor Brauner’s early days

Victor Brauner was a French painter of Romanian origin born in Piatra Neamt on 15 June 1903. He died in Paris on 12 March 1966.

In 1918, the Brauner family moved to Bucharest after having lived in Hamburg and Vienna. The young man entered the Bucharest School of Fine Arts in 1919 and stayed there for two years.

In October 1924 he presented his works and published a magazine entitled “Dada” with his friend, the poet and writer Illarie Voronca, in which he described the notion of picto-poetry, an art form situated between poetry and painting and representing geometric forms of colour with integrated words.

Victor Brauner and the war

In 1925, he took his first trip to Paris where he discovered the Surrealist movement, particularly the work of Giorgio de Chirico. But it was not until 1932, when he settled in the capital, that he met the surrealist artists with the help of surrealist painter and draughtsman Yves Tanguy. It was at this time that Brauner produced a series of paintings around the theme of the extraction of the eye.

In 1934, he exhibited for the first time at the Galerie Pierre. The following year, he returned to Bucharest for three years and then returned to Paris where he lived with Yves Tanguy. In 1938, during a fight between two Spanish surrealist painters, Oscar Dominguez and Esteban Frances, he lost his left eye, which was hit by broken glass.

Following the defeat of 1940, France was partially occupied. Brauner, from a Romanian Jewish family, met up with other artists such as Max Ernst and André Breton in November at the Villa Air-Bel in Marseille. It was at this time that he took part in the creation of the Marseille game inspired by tarot cards. His hope of escaping the Vichy regime and going into exile could not be made reality, so René Char hid him at home in Provence.

This precariousness forced him to create with only the material he could find. He thus used wax, giving it an almost esoteric meaning.

Victor Brauner and Surrealism

In 1947, he took part in the International Surrealist Exhibition at the Maeght Gallery and presented his sculpture entitled “Loup-Table”, a wooden coffee table with the head, tail and testicles of a stuffed fox.

He left the Surrealist group shortly afterwards and fell ill. Deeply affected by the fate of the Romanians who were illegally on French soil, his painting seemed to suffer the consequences, as it becomes darker and darker and the artist affixes typical Dadaist titles to his works.

In 1996, the Centre Pompidou devoted an exhibition to him.

Recognising Victor Brauner’s signature

Like many artists, Victor Brauner did not sign all of his works. However, you will find below an example of the signatures to give you an idea. Variations of these signatures do exist, do not hesitate to contact one of our experts to formally authenticate a signature.

Appraising and selling a piece by Victor Brauner

If you own a piece by Victor Brauner or any other object, ask for a free estimate via our online form.

You will then be contacted by a member of our team of experts and auctioneers to give you an independent view of the market price of your piece. In the context of a possible sale, our specialists will also advise you on the different options available to sell your work at the best price.