Arik Brauer

Arik Brauer’s contribution to the 1987 Luna Luna park was the Fairytale Carousel with Music by Brauer’s daughter

For Luna Luna, Arik Brauer created a fantastical carousel inspired by one of his mystical dreams. The carousel spun to a song written by Brauer and sung by his daughter, Timna.

Artist

Arik Brauer

Attraction

Fairytale carousel with music

Born

1929, Austria

Brauer co-founded the Wiener Schule des Phantastischen Realismus (“Vienna School of Fantastic Realism”)

His painting style is influenced by Jewish mysticism and history, drawing from religious texts such as the Old Testament and the Torah

He rose to the top of the pop charts as a singer-songwriter of Austropop

Arik Brauer.
Fairground view: Arik Brauer, Fairytale carousel with music. Luna Luna, Hamburg, Germany, June-July, 1987.

Arik Brauer is renowned for his Surrealist paintings inspired by Jewish mystical traditions and dream imagery.

Painter, singer, and songwriter Arik Brauer is renowned for his Surrealist paintings inspired by Jewish mystical traditions and dream imagery. Along with painters Wolfgang Hutter, Ernst Fuchs, Rudolf Hausner, and Anton Lehmden, Brauer was a founding member of the Wiener Schule des Phantastischen Realismus (“Vienna School of Fantastic Realism”)—an artistic movement blending the techniques of Old Master paintings with religious and esoteric symbolism to create magical new worlds.

Arik Brauer.
Arik Brauer, Fairytale carousel with music, exhibited 1987.

Brauer’s paintings are heavily influenced by his childhood in Vienna under the Nazi regime and the subsequent rise of National Socialism, as well as by religious texts such as the Torah, the Haggadah, and the Old Testament. For Brauer, “Fantastic Realism” involved implicating the viewer in scenes both surreal and authentic. Paintings such as My Father in Winter (1983), reflect his embrace of traditional landscape painting, Jewish history, and mysticism.

Brauer expanded his work in the 1980s to encompass murals, mosaics, and painted tiles in addition to becoming an accomplished singer, songwriter, poet, and dancer associated with Austropop.

Fairground view: Arik Brauer, Fairytale carousel with music. Luna Luna, Hamburg, Germany, June-July, 1987.
Fairground view: Arik Brauer, Fairytale carousel with music. Luna Luna, Hamburg, Germany, June-July, 1987.

For Luna Luna, Brauer envisioned a fantastical carousel straight out of one of his mystical dreams. The carousel was designed so that eight different characters from a fairytale doubled as seats—among them a butterfly, a wolf, a mermaid, and an anthropomorphic hand—accompanied by a song written, produced, and performed by Brauer’s daughter, Timna Brauer.

Timna Brauer.

Discover more about your favorite artists and attractions

In the original Luna Luna book, translated and reissued for the first time since 1987.