Erica Brausen (31 January 1908 – 16 December 1992), was an art dealer and gallerist who established the

Hanover Gallery The Hanover Gallery was an art gallery in London. It was opened in June 1948 by the German art expert Erica Brausen and financier and art collector Arthur Jeffress at 32A St. George's Street, W1, and closed on 31 March 1973. It was named afte ...

in London in 1948. She was an early champion of several influential contemporary artists, most notably

Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...

Biography

Brausen was born in Düsseldorf to a father who was a merchant and the master of the local fox-hounds. Brausen left Germany in the early 1930s for Paris where she rented a room in

Montparnasse Montparnasse () is an area in the south of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centred at the crossroads of the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the Rue de Rennes, between the Rue de Rennes and boulevard Raspail. Montparnasse has bee ...

. There she became friends with many of the artists living in the area including

Joan Miró Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , , ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan painter, sculptor and ceramicist born in Barcelona. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona i ...

and

Alberto Giacometti Alberto Giacometti (, , ; 10 October 1901 – 11 January 1966) was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draftsman and printmaker. Beginning in 1922, he lived and worked mainly in Paris but regularly visited his hometown Borgonovo to see his family and ...

. In 1935 Brausen moved to

Majorca Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest island in the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain and located in the Mediterranean. The capital of the island, Palma, is also the capital of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The Bal ...

, where she ran a bar popular with artists, writers and visiting sailors. She used these contacts to assist Jewish and socialist friends in escaping from Franco's forces during the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...

. She persuaded a US Navy submarine captain to take

Michel Leiris Julien Michel Leiris (; 20 April 1901 in Paris – 30 September 1990 in Saint-Hilaire, Essonne) was a French surrealist writer and ethnographer. Part of the Surrealist group in Paris, Leiris became a key member of the College of Sociology with ...

and his family to safety in

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...

. Brausen herself escaped on a fishing boat and arrived, penniless, in England at the start of World War II. In London, Brausen began organising small art exhibitions, often in artist studios, but as a German national she encountered many difficulties and restrictions. A gay artist friend married her which allowed her to work legally and she, later, obtained a job at

The Redfern Gallery The Redfern Gallery is an exhibition space in the West End of London specialising in contemporary British art. It was founded by Arthur Knyvett-Lee and Anthony Maxtone Graham in 1923 as an artists' cooperative on the top floor of Redfern H ...

. In 1948, with the financial support of

Arthur Jeffress Arthur Tilden Jeffress (21 November 1905 – 21 September 1961) was an influential gallery owner, collector, and patron of the arts in post-World War II Britain. In the 1920s and 1930s he was conspicuous mostly as a rich playboy and socialite. ...

, a collector she had met at a party, Brausen opened the Hanover Gallery in St. George Street off Hanover Square in central London with a solo exhibition of works by

Graham Sutherland Graham Vivian Sutherland (24 August 1903 – 17 February 1980) was a prolific English artist. Notable for his paintings of abstract landscapes and for his portraits of public figures, Sutherland also worked in other media, including printmaking ...

. From 1946 until its closure in 1973, the Hanover Gallery was among the most influential galleries in Europe. The partnership with Jeffress broke up around the end of 1953, and he left to found his own gallery. A new sponsor, Michael Behrens, stepped in shortly afterwards to support the Hanover. Brausen had bought a number of

early works, including ''

Painting (1946) ''Painting 1946'', also known as ''Painting'' or ''Painting (1946)'', is an oil-on-linen painting by the Ireland, Irish-born artist Francis Bacon (painter), Francis Bacon. It was originally intended to depict a chimpanzee in long grass (parts o ...

'', and he held his first one-man show at the Hanover in November 1947. Brausen became

's principal dealer in London, selling more than seventy of his works over the lifetime of the Gallery. Exhibitions at the Hanover included works by

Lucian Freud Lucian Michael Freud (; 8 December 1922 – 20 July 2011) was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Berlin, the son of Jewis ...

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

and

Max Ernst Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German (naturalised American in 1948 and French in 1958) painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealism ...

. Works by

Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi- abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. As well as sculpture, Moore produced ...

regularly featured in the Hanovers' annual sculpture shows. Brausen was a lesbian and for most of her life her partner was Catharina Koopman, known as 'Toto', a one-time Chanel model and film actress. The two met in 1945 in

Ascona 300px, Ascona Ascona ( lmo, label= Ticinese, Scona ) is a municipality in the district of Locarno in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland. It is located on the shore of Lake Maggiore. The town is a popular tourist destination and holds the yea ...

, Switzerland, where Koopman was recuperating after surviving seven months in the

Ravensbrück concentration camp Ravensbrück () was a German concentration camp exclusively for women from 1939 to 1945, located in northern Germany, north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück (part of Fürstenberg/Havel). The camp memorial's estimated figure o ...

. Koopman had been sent there after she was caught spying for the

Italian Resistance The Italian resistance movement (the ''Resistenza italiana'' and ''la Resistenza'') is an umbrella term for the Italian resistance groups who fought the occupying forces of Nazi Germany and the fascist collaborationists of the Italian Social ...

during the Second World War. She had been caught on two previous occasions and escaped both times but she was captured a third time in October 1944 in Venice and quickly deported to the camp. Koopman helped Brausen run the Hanover and the two women lived, openly, together until Koopman's death in 1991.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brausen, Erica 1908 births 1992 deaths 20th-century LGBT people Art dealers from London Businesspeople from Düsseldorf German LGBT businesspeople German emigrants to the United Kingdom 20th-century German businesspeople