12 Facts About Heinz Braun

Heinz Braun was a German autodidact painter and occasional actor.

Heinz Braun's mother was a tailor and his father a taxi driver.

Heinz Braun married Elisabeth Schmelzer in 1965 and moved to Germering, at the outskirts of his native Munich.

In 1979 Braun became unable to work due to a walking disability.

Heinz Braun retired from the post office and began to receive a disability pension.

Heinz Braun painted at least since completing school, but from 1951 onward, he devoted himself more and more to painting.

From about 1971, Heinz Braun painted with oils on canvas in a style that was partly photo-realistic and partly surreal.

Heinz Braun is said to have spent more and more time at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, studying the Old Masters, copying many works and figuring out their styles.

In 1974, Heinz Braun became acquainted with Herbert Achternbusch, a German independent movie director, and played leading parts in some of his productions.

Heinz Braun is remembered as a bulky and boisterous man, 2 meters tall and described as ferocious, in the later years even rabid.

Heinz Braun began to use expressive techniques, such as modeling landscapes with clay, sand, mud and dung on the canvas and became brutally honest in his portraits of friends as well as in portraying himself, showing the decay of his body under the influence of laryngeal cancer.

Additionally, works by Heinz Braun are housed in the collection of the Munich Stadtmuseum, in the Lenbachhaus Munich, and in various private foundations and numerous private collections.