¤ VICTOR BRAUNER (1903-1966) UNTITLED, 1953 Ink, colored pencil and paraffin on paper Signed and dated '2.7.1953' lower right Located 'Vallauris' lower left Ink, colored pencil and paraffin on paper; signed and dated '2.7.1953' lower right; located 'Vallauris' lower left 57,5 X 76 CM - 22 5/8 X 29 7/8 IN. The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Mr. Samy Kinge. "After the painful parenthesis of the period known as the 'Retracted', Brauner's works gradually calm down and become populated with familiar or mythical animals, which gradually evacuate the human figure to suggest primitive totems with simplified appearances. Wax, the magical material used by the artist since 1943, is chosen more to tend to atemporal representations inspired by archaic civilizations. In 1954, Brauner painted his masterful Prelude to a Civilization (New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art), a painting showing an immense animal in profile in which some forty imaginary creatures (animals, figures, masks and abstract symbols) inspired by the Mexican codex as well as the art of Paul Klee and Max Ernst are assembled. The ensemble echoes cave painting, while at the same time expressing a personal narrative of the painter and his reflection on universalism. Camille Morando, "Le monde-bestiaire", in Victor Brauner, Je suis le rêve. Je suis l'inspiration, cat. expo, Musée d'Art moderne de Paris, 18 September 2020-10 January 2021, Paris musées, Paris: 2021, p. 272.