Victor Brauner
Romanian, 1903–1966
Gemini
INV-1187
Victor Brauner
Romanian, 1903–19661938
paintingmodern and contemporary art
Date
1938
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
45.7 × 54.3 cm (18 × 21 7/16 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Gift of Albert A. Robin
Victor Brauner’s Gemini plays on duality and the powers of sight. Here a moon-like face with two pairs of eyes and twin tongues forms an uncanny hybrid plant-human. Imagery related to eyes was popular among the Surrealists, but for Brauner the subject matter was also viscerally personal. The artist lost his left eye in the summer of 1938, following a violent brawl with fellow Surrealists Oscar Domínguez and Esteban Francés. His injury propelled him to produce many ocular paintings and self-portraits. “I have closed my left eye forever,” he wrote, “It was probably by chance that I was given the opportunity to see the center of the world.”
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