Arik Brauer was born in 1929 as Erich Brauer in Vienna. Between 1945 and 1951 he studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts with Robin Christian Andersen and Albert Paris Gütersloh. In addition to fellow painters such as Ernst Fuchs, Rudolf Hausner and Anton Lehmden, Brauer was co-founder and one of the main representatives of the "Viennese School of Fantastic Realism", an important movement in Austrian painting that is close to Surrealism. The artists trained their fine, small-scale style of painting on Old Master paintings. After the group exhibition of the "Phantasts" at the Austrian Gallery Belvedere in 1959, their international recognition also began, which was followed – in an unprecedented series of successes – by numerous international exhibitions.
Throughout his life, Arik Brauer went on many study trips to Europe and the Near East, which he financed at a young age through his appearances as a singer. For Brauer, who has been working in Vienna and Israel since 1964, numerous international commissions as a painter and stage designer followed. In 1986 the artist was appointed to the Vienna Academy, where he held a professorship for painting until 1997. In 2002 Arik Brauer was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art 1st Class.
The artist died on the 24th of January 2021, aged 92, in Vienna.
