Ernst, Max

(1891-1976)

   German-born French painter, designer, sculptor, writer

   A seminal figure of 20th-century art, in both dadaism and surrealism, Max Ernst, noted for his extraordinary range of style, technique, and media, was born in Bruhl and studied philosophy and psychiatry at the university of Bonn (1909). During World War I (1914-18), he served in the German army. Drawn to the new dadaist movement, which he helped to found, Ernst settled in Cologne after the war, where he began to work in collages (Fiat Mode, 1919; C'est le chapeau qui fait l'homme, 1920). In 1922, he moved to Paris, where he turned to surrealism. He soon painted pictures with unusual themes, such as solemn humans and fantastic creatures inhabiting precisely detailed Renaissance landscapes, and also more enigmatic works, in collage and tromp l'oeil (L'Éléphant Célèbes; Oedipus Rex). In 1925, he invented the frottage technique (pencil rubbings of objects), and later experimented with grattage (scraping or troweling of pigment from a canvas), and also using paint drippings to achieve his image. with the German invasion of France (1940) in World War II, he was briefly detained, and in that period worked with decalco-mania—a technique of transferring pictures from specially prepared paper to glass or metal. He immigrated to New York City in 1941 with the help of noted art patron, Peggy Guggenheim, whom he soon married. In 1954, Ernst returned to France. His works had already become highly prized, and throughout his remarkably varied career, he was known as a tireless experimenter. In all his works, he sought the ideal method of conveying in two or three dimensions the extradimensional world of dreams and the imagination.