Julien Levy, New York (acquired directly from the artist)
Acquired from the above

New York, Julien Levy Gallery, Victor Brauner, 1947, no. 5
New York, The Equitable Gallery, Levy: Portrait of an Art Gallery, 1998, n.n.
New York, Paul Kasmin Gallery, Alexander the Great: The Iolas Gallery 1955-1987, 2014, n.n.

Didier Semin, Victor Brauner, 1990, n.n., illustrated p. 135

The work is in very good condition. Encaustic on paper mounted on board. The board is sound. The surface is richly textured. Under UV light: no inpainting is apparent.
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Created using the extraordinary technique of encaustic painting that Brauner developed at the end of the 1940s, Demons du parapluie is a striking example of the artist’s rich visual language. The two antagonistic male and female figures balanced atop the central character's head create a strong symmetry that derives from the hieroglyphs of ancient temples, especially those of ancient South American cultures, whose art provided inspiration for Brauner throughout his career. Marcel Jean suggests that Brauner’s imagery is "More cabbalistic than kabalist, and revealing (with an irony that was perhaps involuntary) the ‘spiritualistic’ memories of his childhood, Brauner’s wax paintings borrow their themes from alchemy, from the tarot, from Egyptian designs, and from the codices of ancient Mexico. They also contain an element of anguish and of personal desires: the profile with fixed stare and a bitter expression which reappears so often in Brauner’s waxes is always a self-portrait" (Marcel Jean, The History of Surrealist Painting, London, 1960, p. 333).

During the World War II, as was the case with many of the Surrealist painters with whom he was associated, Brauner left Paris and took refuge in the Basses-Alpes. The privations of his remote location led him to develop highly inventive techniques for creating pictures. Marcel Jean explains: "with oil-paints unobtainable, he created paintings in wax, spreading a thin base of melted candle-grease on canvas or cardboard, and engraving on this surface a design accentuated afterwards by means of smoke black, the shapes themselves being coloured by lightly glazed hues" (ibid., p. 333). The outcome of these experiments can be seen in the richly textured surface and deep colors of Demons du parapluie, in which conventional depth and modelling have been abandoned for bold shapes and alchemical effects.