Victor Brauner

Alexandre Iolas Galerie, Paris
Galerie le Point, Monte-Carlo (acquired by 1985)
Sale: Christie's, London, 2nd July 1998, lot 257
Acquired directly from the above

Lugano, Villa Malpensata, Musei e Cultura, V. Brauner, Miti, Presagi, Simboli, 1985, illustrated in colour
Canne, Malmaison, Femmes: Portraits et Nus, 1985-86, illustrated
Paris, Grand Palais, La Femme Corps et Âme, 1986, illustrated
Geneva, Musée Rath & Paris, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville, Regards sur Minotaure, 1987-1988, no. 99, illustrated in colour
Monte-Carlo, Galerie le Point, Victor Brauner: Œuvres de 1930 à 1961, 1989, no. 9
Paris, Galerie D. Imbert, Victor Brauner, 1990, no. 7, illustrated
Milan, Galleria del Credito Valtellinese, Victor Brauner, 1995, illustrated
Aosta, Musée Archéologique, La Femme, Les Femmes,  1997-1998, illustrated

Didier Semin, Victor Brauner, Paris, 1990, p. 95, illustrated in colour

The canvas is unlined. There are a few minor paint losses to the extreme upper edge and there is no evidence of retouching visible under ultra-violet light. This work is in very good condition.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Victor Brauner's extraordinary painting Mitsi is amongst his most imaginative and compelling Surrealist works.  The segmented, sensual figure of Mitsi perches on kitten-heels, the bestial amalgamation suggesting an underlying fetishist potency. The anthropomorphic elements are important motifs in Brauner's pre-war œuvre. Sarane Alexandrian stated that 'the least touch of his brush liberates the flow of anecdote. In effect, Brauner paints only according to the story he invents; he even confided to me that if he did not feel as the start the necessity of elaborating a fiction and recounting it with a plethora of picturesque details, he would never be tempted to make a single picture' (S. Alexandrian quoted in William S. Rubin, Dada and Surrealist Art, London, 1969, p. 310).

In the present work, as with his other major pictures from the late 1930s, the eyes are the key compositional elements. As potent organs of Surrealism, eyes embodied the aesthetic of discovery and mystical insights. Shortly before the present work was painted, on the 27th of August 1938, Brauner returned to Paris and witnessed a heated argument between friends. Oscar Dominquez, threw a glass at Esteban Frances which struck Brauner's left eye, irreparably damaging it. This seminal event transformed Brauner's artistic output. As Marcel Jean argues the loss of his eye revolutionised his work; thereafter his art possessed a mystical integrity: 'after his accident, Brauner painted pictures differing greatly from his former production; they became, in effect, more 'interior'... Ghosts, ectoplasm, it seems, are materialized in the half-light... or else they are huge faces with staring eyes, their expression showing a deep desire to fascinate' (M. Jean, The History of Surrealist Painting, London, 1960, p. 293).