Important figure of the Romanian avant-garde, Victor Brauner was attached to the Dadaist and Surrealist movement, which he committed himself to promote in his country through artistic magazines such as 75 HP or UNU. In 1930, traveling to Paris, he became friend with Constantin Brancusi, Alberto Giacometti and Yves Tanguy. The latter introduced him to artists who have been closely or remotely involved in the French surrealist movement: Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray and André Breton who wrote the foreword to Brauner's first Parisian exhibition in 1934. Breton highlights the overflowing imagination of the Romanian painter.
Brauner flied back to Bucharest a year upon his arrival in Paris as he hardly gained recognition for his work. In 1938, Brauner moved back to France and settled in the South. During the war he established himself in Switzerland. Throughout this period he mainly realized small artworks in order to easily carry them when moving. In 1945, Brauner goes back to Paris, and participates in the 1947 Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme held at the Galerie Maeght, in which he exhibits his famous Loup-table; a surrealist artwork which has been closely linked to a ready-made.
In 1948, expulsed from the surrealist movement, Brauner dedicated himself to drawing and encaustic painting. His esthetic, characterized by flat and stylized shapes convey to his artworks an abstract approach. Not recognized at his debuts, Brauner gained progressive renown. In 1961, an exhibition dedicated to his artworks is held in New York at the Bodley Gallery. In 1966, he represents France at the Venice Biennale.
In 2020, the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris is hosting a retrospective devoted to Victor Brauner.