"Roy = Les contraires trouve l'homme = Lire - Mélancholie du Bien"
Victor Brauner
Romanian, 1903–1966
August 29, 1947
A small wax effigy set into a shallow painted-wood case, where Brauner combines melted wax, seeds, hair, pebbles and buckshot to make a talismanic, ritualized portrait that fuses sculpture and private symbolism.
You notice a childlike, honey-colored silhouette of a body, pocked and melted, its crude face and torn limbs studded with organic debris and shot, suspended like a relic in a narrow wooden box so that memory and menace feel almost interchangeable.
Created in 1947, this object exemplifies Brauner’s Surrealist move to use chance materials and occult imagery, turning three-dimensional collage into an intimate, ritual object that helped blur boundaries between painting, sculpture, and personal myth-making.
Medium
Wax figure with burr, seeds, pebbles, hair, and buckshot on painted wood in glass wood box
Dimensions
12 3/4 x 6 3/4 x 2" (32.4 x 17 x 4.9 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Mrs. Katharine Kuh
Accession
372.1961
Palette
Exhibitions
