Arik Brauer
Arik Brauer (born 1929). Austrian painter, draughtsman,
printmaker, poet, dancer, singer and stage designer. He resides in Vienna
and Ein-Hod Israel. Brauer is a co-founder of the Vienna School of
Fantastic Realism, together with Ernst Fuchs, Rudolf Hausner, Wolfgang
Hutter and Anton Lehmden.
Erich 'Arik' Brauer is the child of
Lithuanian Jewish emigrants. His post-war artistic training was in Vienna,
under the supervision of Albert Paris von Gutersloh. Gütersloh promoted
Brauer's work within the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism circle of
artists, which had formed in the mid-1950s from a post-1946 Viennese
surrealist group that had included Brauer along with Edgar Jené, Ernst
Fuchs, Wolfgang Hutter, Rudolf Hausner, Anton Lehmden, and Fritz Janschka.
Despite the prevailing art-world taste for abstraction in the 1950s and
early 60s, Brauer's work successfully blended high craftsmanship and
surrealism in ways that gained him international attention. In 1982 he had
breakthrough solo shows in the USA.
Brauer has also designed architectural
projects in Austria and Israel. The facades and interiors of his buildings
are covered with fantastical mosaics, murals and painted tiles. He also
designed 2002 the first United Buddy Bear for Austria.
