Max Ernst

Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German-born artist who worked as a painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. He was a key figure in the Dada movement and surrealism across Europe, producing a vast body of work. Lacking formal artistic training, Ernst’s experimental approach to creation led him to develop frottage—a technique of making images by rubbing pencils over textured surfaces—and grattage, where paint is scraped across canvas to capture the impressions of objects underneath. He also became known for unconventional drawing methods and for producing novels and pamphlets through collage. His service as a soldier during World War I lasted four years and left him deeply traumatized and critical of modernity. During World War II, while living in France, he was labeled an “undesirable foreigner.”

Born in Brühl, Ernst was the third of nine children in a middle-class Catholic household. His father, a teacher of the deaf and an amateur painter, was both devout and strict, inspiring in Max a tendency to resist authority while also encouraging his interest in painting and nature sketches. Ernst began painting in 1909 while studying philosophy, art history, literature, psychology, and psychiatry at the University of Bonn, where he also visited asylums and became captivated by the art of patients. That same year, he produced sketches of the Brühl castle gardens and portraits of his sister and himself. In 1911, he befriended August Macke and joined the Die Rheinischen Expressionisten group, deciding to pursue art as a career. A visit to the 1912 Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne exposed him to works by Pablo Picasso and post-Impressionists like Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, which had a profound impact. His own work was shown that year at Galerie Feldman in Cologne as part of the Das Junge Rheinland group, and he participated in several group exhibitions in 1913. During this period, his paintings adopted an ironic style that mixed grotesque elements with Cubist and Expressionist motifs. In 1914, he met Hans Arp in Cologne, beginning a fifty-year friendship. After finishing his studies that summer, World War I interrupted his life; he was drafted and served on both the Western and Eastern Fronts. The war devastated him; he later wrote that he “died” on 1 August 1914 and was “resurrected” on 11 November 1918. While briefly on the Western Front, he was assigned to mapmaking, which allowed him to keep painting. Several German Expressionist painters, including August Macke and Franz Marc, were killed in the war.

After being demobilized in 1918, Ernst returned to Cologne and married Luise Straus, an art history student of Jewish ancestry he had met in 1914. In 1919, he visited Paul Klee in Munich and studied paintings by Giorgio de Chirico. Inspired by de Chirico and sources like mail-order catalogs and teaching manuals, he created his first collages that year, including the lithograph portfolio *Fiat modes*, a technique that would dominate his later work. Also in 1919, he co-founded the Cologne Dada group with social activist Johannes Theodor Baargeld and others. Over the next two years, he and Baargeld published short-lived magazines like *Der Strom* and *die Schammade* and organized Dada exhibitions. His son Ulrich “Jimmy” Ernst, who would also become a painter, was born on 24 June 1920; the marriage to Luise was brief. In 1921, Ernst met Paul Éluard, who became a lifelong friend. Éluard bought two of Ernst’s paintings (*Celebes* and *Oedipus Rex*) and selected six collages to illustrate his poetry collection *Répétitions*. The following year, they collaborated on *Les malheurs des immortels*, and Ernst met André Breton, with whom he worked on the magazine *Littérature*. In 1922, unable to obtain the necessary papers, Ernst entered France illegally and entered a ménage à trois with Éluard and his wife Gala in the Paris suburb of Saint-Brice, leaving his wife and son behind. During his first two years in Paris, he took odd jobs to support himself while continuing to paint. In 1923, the Éluards moved to Eaubonne, where Ernst painted numerous murals, and his works were exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants. Though he initially accepted the arrangement, Éluard grew uneasy about the affair and abruptly left for Monaco and then Saigon, Vietnam, in 1924. He soon asked his wife and Ernst to join him; both sold paintings to finance the trip. Ernst went to Düsseldorf and sold many works to longtime friend Johanna Ey, owner of the gallery Das Junge Rheinland. After a short time together in Saigon, the trio decided Gala would stay with Paul. The Éluards returned to Eaubonne in early September, while Ernst followed months later after exploring more of Southeast Asia. He returned to Paris in late 1924 and signed a contract with Jacques Viot that allowed him to paint full-time. In 1925, he set up a studio at 22, rue Tourlaque.

Ernst eventually settled in France, achieving financial success in the 1950s. He had a lasting fascination with birds, often incorporating his alter ego, Loplop, a bird, into his work. He died in Paris on 1 April 1976.