Max Ernst

MAX ERNST (Brühl, Germany, 1891 – Paris, 1976).
“Dent prompte,” 1969.
Color lithograph on Japan paper, print no. 13/70.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
From the “Dent prompte” series, created in collaboration with René Char.
Published by Galerie Lucie Weill, Au Pont des Arts, Paris, and printed by Fernand Mourlot.
Measurements: 46 x 44 cm.

Part of the special edition of “Dent prompte,” this print is part of Max Ernst’s mature graphic work and reflects his longstanding interest in the dialogue between image and poetry. The project, created in collaboration with the Surrealist poet René Char, brought together his texts with a series of compositions by Ernst, establishing a practice of the illustrated book that held an important place in his career. MoMA holds a copy of the publication.

The composition fully embodies the logic of collage, a decisive technique in Ernst’s artistic language: images of different origins, scales, and natures are juxtaposed without establishing a conventional narrative. This juxtaposition of unrelated elements generates the estrangement characteristic of Surrealism, where unexpected associations replace narrative logic. Ernst himself had, since his Dadaist years, made the displacement and recombination of preexisting images one of his primary creative methods.

The color lithograph preserves this layered appearance of the image: the large flat fields of red, orange, and blue are hallmarks of the image, contrasting with the areas of meticulous drawing and the texture of the Japanese paper. The printmaking technique functions here as a continuation of Ernst’s experimentation with collage and with methods capable of provoking unexpected visual associations.

Max Ernst was one of the leading figures of Dadaism and Surrealism and one of the most experimental artists of the 20th century. A driving force behind the Cologne Dadaist group and associated with the Parisian Surrealist circle since the 1920s, he radically reinvented collage and introduced techniques such as frottage and grattage. Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum In 1954, he received the Grand Prize for Painting at the Venice Biennale, and in 1975, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum dedicated a major retrospective to him, which was later presented in Paris. Peggy Guggenheim Collection His work is extensively represented in institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum.