Innovative painter and collagist Max Ernst (1891-1976) was a driving force behind Dada and surrealism and set the course for abstract expressionism. His rich and complex oeuvre is now fruitfully reexamined in this illuminating volume in which splendid full-page reproductions are matched with eye-opening essays by Ernst expert Spies, curator Rewald, and art historian Robert Storr, among others, each offering striking interpretations of key aspects of Ernst's imaginative creative journey. Considered a "scholarly painter," Ernst drew on everything from mythology to Freudian theory to poetry to science. Born and raised in Germany, he found his artistic milieu in Paris, where he created his seminal collage "novels" until World War II forced him into exile. Secured a place in America by his third wife, gallery owner Peggy Guggenheim, Ernst, working steadily, ended up in Arizona with artist Dorothea Tanning and eventually returned to France. Imaginative, productive, caustically witty, fierce, and enigmatic, Ernst, a master of commanding lines and earthy textures, created an ever--metamorphosing dreamworld in which ferocity and beauty intertwine in a potent vision of life's paradoxes and magic.
Donna SeamanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Kurzbeschreibung
Max Ernst (1891-1976) was a pivotal figure in the history of twentieth-century art. A leader of the Dada movement in Germany, he later joined the circle of writers and artists gathered in Paris around Andre Breton, the unofficial founder of the Surrealist movement. At the outset of World War II, Ernst fled Germany for the United States, first going to New York and eventually settling in Sedona, Arizona. Ernst returned to Europe in 1950 and continued to explore Surrealist imagery and methods throughout his life. This important book accompanies the first retrospective exhibition of Ernst's work held in the United States in thirty years. It examines his pioneering accomplishments in painting, collage, and sculpture and considers his use of the techniques of frottage, grattage, and decalcomania. Also featured are Ernst's unique collage novels - narratives comprising disparate images culled from nineteenth-century engravings and combined in surreal, unsettling compositions. Leading scholars write on various aspects of Ernst's life and art: Werner Spies on the Ernst in America; Ludger Derenthal on Ernst and politics; Pepe Karmel on Ernst and contemporary art; Thomas Gaehtgens on Ernst and the old masters; and Robert Storr on the collage novels. This book accompanies an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to run between April 4-July 10, 2005.
