[1] During his career he worked variously as painter, printmaker, graphic artist, illustrator, muralist, and set designer.
[4] He was also a passionate art-educator, teaching classes with Canadian painter Marian Dale Scott.
Brandtner introduced notions of the German Expressionists to Canada, especially the works of Bauhaus.
[5] In 1936, together with Norman Bethune, George Holt, Elizabeth Frost, André Charles Biéler and Hazen Sise, he founded the Children's Art Centre in Montreal.
In 2011, Galerie Valentin in Montreal held a retrospective exhibition of Brandtner's works.