Harry Brauner

Brauner was born in Piatra Neamț into a Jewish family with many children, including his elder brother, Victor, who became a noted painter and sculptor of the Surrealist movement.

There he studied at the Music Academy, having as teachers, among others, Constantin Brăiloiu, Dumitru Georgescu Kiriac, and Ștefan Popescu.

During World War II, he was a teacher at a Jewish high school in Bucharest, in 1944 he became music adviser at the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company in charge of folklore, and in 1949 he became head of the Folklore Department at the Music Academy in Bucharest.

[1] Brauner was implicated in the show trial against Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu, and spent 12 years in prison, most of it in solitary confinement.

In 1966, he was allowed to travel to the Venice Biennale, Italy, where his brother Victor Brauner exhibited some of his works at the French pavilion.