Victor Brauner (Romanian 1903-1966)
Bestiaire, screenprint, dated 1963, signed and numbered 32 of the edition of 60, (grey colour paper variant).
Victor Brauner studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bucharest and then went through all the stages of: 'Dadaist, Abstractionist, Expressionist'. In 1924 he had his first personal exhibition of Dadaist paintings at the Mozart Gallery in Bucharest and founded a Dada Magazine ''75 HP'. In 1930 he settled in Paris where he met Brancusi and Yves Tanguy who later introduced him to the circle of the surrealists. In the 1960s Brauner developed his own style of painting depicting the mythology of the modern world.
Elements of this amusing screenprint were used in the design of the poster for Victor Brauner's exhibition in 1963 at Galerie Le Point Cardinal, Paris. (A 'bestiairy' is a medieval book that has descriptions of various real or imaginary animals accompanied by a moralising explanation and a picture, reflecting the belief that every living thing had its own special meaning).