Landscape (Arizona Mountains)
Oil on paper
15.2 x 21 cm
Signed Max Ernst lower right
Oil on paper
15.2 x 21 cm
Signed Max Ernst lower right
Ernst, Max
Biography
Max Ernst (1891-1961)
Born in Brühl, Germany, in 1891, Max Ernst briefly studied philosophy at the University of Bonn, but dropped out to pursue a career in art. Befriending the painter August Macke, he joined the group of the ‘Rheinische Expressionisten’ in 1911. In 1913 he traveled to Paris and got acquainted with Guillaume Apollinaire and Robert Delaunay. A year later, he met artist Hans Arp, who became a lifelong friend.
Serving as a soldier during WW1, he returned to Cologne after the war and co-founded the Cologne Dada group. Through his first exhibition in Paris in 1921 he got involved with the French Surrealists, subsequently collaborating with André Breton, Joan Miró, Salvador Dali and Louis Bunuel. In 1936 Ernst participated in the groundbreaking exhibition Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Interned in France as an enemy alien at the beginning of WW2, Ernst escaped to the United States with infamous art collector, bohemian and socialite Peggy Guggenheim, whom he married in 1942. Ernst became an American citizen in 1948. After his divorce to Guggenheim, he married Dorothea Tanning and the couple resettled in France in 1953, where Ernst received French citizenship. He died in Paris in 1976.