Comments on: The man who took out Victor Brauner´s eye

The man who took out Victor Brauner´s eye

adamvasco — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 12:33:00 -0800

Oscar Dominguez is probably best known for the Electro Sexual Sewing Machine.
He was a surrealist (Fr) and a forger (pdf).
When a fight broke out between Oscar Dominguez and Esteban Frances, it was Victor Brauner who stepped in to separate them, Dominguez accidentally struck him in the face with a bottle. The injury cost Brauner his left eye, an event that Brauner had forseen.
Dominguez updated the technique known as Decalmania.
His last lover was the heiress Marie-Laure de Noailles and during this time he replaced some of her Picasso´s with forgeries painted by himself, selling the originals. He is also suspected of forging Klee, Ledger and Laurens.
He slit his wrists one New years Eve and Janet Flanner churlishly conjectured that he "lay down on the floor, being a dirty, untidy man...and bled all over everything".

By: GallonOfAlan

GallonOfAlan — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 13:40:55 -0800

It was a coincidence. Foreseeing the future is impossible.

By: chavenet

chavenet — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:31:29 -0800

Surrealism's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye.

By: uosuaq

uosuaq — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 15:32:45 -0800

Or until somebody finds an eye.

By: adamvasco

adamvasco — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 16:42:16 -0800

chavenet didn´t you mean to put a link there?

By: GenjiandProust

GenjiandProust — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 17:01:27 -0800

It was a coincidence. Foreseeing the future is impossible. You do not hang out with many Surrealists, do you? It's best not to assume anything is beyond them. Give them an inch, and they'll steal your Picassos. And they will foresee that, too! I mean, if by "foreseeing," you mean "planning."

By: StickyCarpet

StickyCarpet — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 18:23:03 -0800

Such violence was not uncommon at parties attended by the surrealist group... Dead Kennedys concerts were full of magical violence until Jello Biafra broke his leg performing, and that was the end of that.

By: misteraitch

misteraitch — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 05:37:11 -0800

Thanks for this, adamvasco—while I’d heard of Dominguez as a surrealist, I’d only ever seen a handful of his ‘decalcomania’ pieces. The whole forgery angle is news to me. Seems like no-one has a kind word for the man. On a more positive note, from the biographical articles at Oxford Art Online I learn that he encouraged ‘... the dissemination of the [Surrealist] movement in Spain [and] had a particularly strong role in the promotion of Surrealism on the Canary Islands;’ that ‘his short “cosmic period” 1938–9, in which he painted volcanic-type structures and strange vegetation growing among lunar, wind-blown landscapes’ was reckoned to be highly original; and that he was also a sculptor: ‘one of the most prolific producers of poetic and irrational Surrealist objects.’