MAX ERNST
Born in Germany in 1891 Max Ernst (right) perfectly encompasses what we had in mind for our gallery. A key member of the Dada movement and then Surrealism in Europe in the 1910s and 1920s, Max Ernst used a variety of methods including painting, collage, printmaking, sculpture, and various unconventional drawing methods. He used these to give visual form to both personal memory and collective myth. He introduced the art of grattage which is when paint is scraped across canvas to reveal the imprints of objects below it. Another way he experimented with paint was the invention of decalcomania, which is when paint is pressed between two canvases.
The Triumph of Surrealism (right) was painted by Max Ernst in 1937. The painting's initial name is The Angel of Hearth and Home, but it was retitled by Ernst in 1938. The piece was created shortly after the defeat of the Spanish Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. In this conflict, Spanish fascist leaders were supported by Germany and Italy in their victory. Ernst's goal was to depict the chaos that he saw spreading over Europe and the ruin that fascism brings to countries.
Max Ernst's Pietà or Revolution by Night (left) replaces the traditional scene of Mary holding the body of Christ with an image of the artist himself being held by his father. The painting is interpreted as symbolic of the turbulent relationship between Ernst and his dad. Max replaces Mary with his father and the artist himself is in the place of Jesus in the painting. There is a figure in the back walking up some stairs with a bandage on his head, many believe this is either Sigmund Freud or the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire.
The Temptation of Saint Anthony (left) was painted in 1946 when the David L. Loew-Albert Lewin film production company held a contest for a painting on the theme of Saint Anthony's Temptation. The winner would be used in the film "The Private Affairs of Bel Ami". Tons of artists produced paintings on this subject, but the contest was won by Max Ernst, whose work was shown in the film. Salvador Dali, also featured in our gallery, submitted his own piece for this contest as well.
The Elephant Celebes (right) was painted in Cologne in 1921 and was Max Ernst's first large picture. In this painting Ernst has used his earlier university studies in psychology and philosophy, in which he became familiar with the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud. This provided the basis for an artistic exploration of the subconscious. This painting grew directly out of Ernst's use of collage from 1919 onwards to produce bizarre combinations of images, though no preliminary collages or sketches were made for it. The idea of the painting appeared spontaneously on the canvas with few alterations as it progressed.
Ubu Imperator (left) resembles a collage in painted form. The artist's knowledge of theories by psychologist Freud, familiarity with myth as well as Ernst's extreme wit are reflected in this early painting. In this work a spinning top, a red carcass with iron reinforcement, and human hands express an astonishing image of the Ubu Father, a grotesque symbol of authority invented by Alfred Jarry