Max Ernst

MAX ERNST (Brühl, Germany, 1891 – Paris, 1976).
“C’est bien,” 1972.
Original lithograph printed on Japanese paper, copy H.C. XI/XIX.
Signed and numbered by hand.
Measurements: 38 x 28 cm.

A German artist who became a naturalized French citizen, considered a key figure in both the Dada movement and Surrealism. Throughout his varied artistic career, Ernst was known as a tireless experimenter, employing an extraordinary diversity of techniques, styles, and materials. In all his works, he sought the ideal means to express, in two or three dimensions, the extradimensional world of dreams and the imagination. In 1909, he enrolled at the University of Bonn, where he studied philosophy, art history, literature, and psychiatry. His earliest works date from this period; their Expressionist influence reveals the mark of his friendship with August Macke. In 1922, he moved to Paris, where he began painting surrealist works in which solemn human figures and fantastical creatures inhabit Renaissance-style spaces rendered with meticulous precision (L’éléphant célèbre, 1921, Tate Gallery, London). In 1925, he invented frottage; later, he experimented with grattage. In 1930, he made his film debut as an actor in *L’Age d’Or* (The Golden Age), the second Surrealist film by Spanish director Luis Buñuel. His work would have a profound influence on countless artists.