Ernst, Max (redirected from Max Ernst)

Ernst, Max (mäks ĕrnst) 1891–1976, German painter. After World War I, Ernst joined the Dada movement in Paris and then became a founder of surrealism. Apart from the medium of collage, for which he is well known, Ernst developed other devices to express his fantastic vision. In frottage he rubbed black chalk on paper held against various materials such as leaves, wood, and fabrics to achieve bizarre effects. He was also the author of several volumes of collage novels. A note of whimsy often characterizes his dreamlike landscapes while other works reveal an allegorical imagination. Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale and several other works are in the Museum of Modern Art, New York City.

Bibliography

See his Beyond Painting (1948); studies by J. Russell (1967) and U. M. Schneede (1973); R. Rainwater, Max Ernst, Beyond Surrealism: An Exhibition of the Artist's Books and Prints (1986); W. A. Camfield, ed., Max Ernst: Dada and the Dawn of Surrealism (1993); W. Spies, ed., Max Ernst: A Retrospective (2005).

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Ernst, Max

Max Ernst, photograph by Yousuf Karsh, 1965.

(credit: © Karsh from Rapho/Photo Researchers)

(born April 2, 1891, Brühl, Ger.—died April 1, 1976, Paris, Fr.) German-born French painter and sculptor. He gave up studying philosophy and psychology at Bonn University for painting. After serving in World War I, he became the leader of the Dada movement in Cologne (1919), working in collage and photomontage. A characteristic work is Here Everything Is Still Floating (1920), a startlingly illogical composition made from cutout photographs of insects, fish, and anatomical drawings. In 1922 he settled in Paris and was among the founders of Surrealism. His work was imaginative and experimental; he pioneered the technique of frottage and experimented with automatism. After 1934 the irrational and whimsical imagery seen in his paintings appeared also in his sculpture. In 1941 he moved to New York City, where he joined his third wife, Peggy Guggenheim, and began collaborating with Marcel Duchamp. He returned to France in 1953 and continued to produce lyrical and abstract works.

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Ernst, Max (Maximillian) (1891–1976) painter; born in Brühl, Germany. He studied philosophy at the University of Bonn (1911), traveled widely, lived in the U.S.A. during the 1940s, and settled in France (1953). A surrealist and Dadaist, he used the subconscious as his inspiration, as seen in Oedipus Rex (1921) and Polish Rider (1954).