The Bridge is typical of Brauer's work in style as well as subject. Jewel-like colors and a smooth, hard surface reminiscent of Persian and Indian miniatures are combined with a fantastic landscape inhabited by persons who seem to bear a relationship to the peasants in Pieter Brueghel's 16th century Mannerist paintings.

Brauer was born in 1929 and raised in Vienna. After Austria's capitulation to the Nazis, he was forced to work as a slave laborer during his early teen-age years. When the war ended, he studied at the Academy in his native city where he met the other members of the group who formed the nucleus of the "Vienna School of Fantastic Realism." The group issued no manifesto nor did it proclaim a program, instead the Vienna Achool was loosely bound together through ties of friendship, an admiration for the painting techniques of the Old Masters, and an affinity to the classic Surrealism of Belgians Magritte and Delvaux.

Brauer's studies were followed by several years of travel through Western Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. He supported himself as a folk singer and night club performer at times during the 1950s but then turned to painting full time.

Source: Bulletin, March-April, 1980.