Max Ernst

1891–1976

In Tate Modern

Modern Art and St Ives: Paris, London and St Ives 1920–1940

In Tate Liverpool

Biography

Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German (naturalised American in 1948 and French in 1958) painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealism. He had no formal artistic training, but his experimental attitude toward the making of art resulted in his invention of frottage—a technique that uses pencil rubbings of objects as a source of images— and 'grattage', an analogous technique in which paint is scraped across canvas to reveal the imprints of the objects placed beneath. He is also noted for his novels consisting of collages.

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Artworks

Max Ernst Celebes

1921

T01988

Max Ernst Men Shall Know Nothing of This

1923

On display at Tate Liverpool part of Constellations T00336

Max Ernst The Entire City

1934

On display at Tate St Ives part of Modern Art and St Ives N05289

Max Ernst Forest and Dove

1927

T00548

Max Ernst Pietà or Revolution by Night

1923

T03252

Max Ernst Dadaville

c.1924

T03707

Max Ernst Untitled from ‘La Brebis galante’

1949

View by appointment P77271

Max Ernst Dangerous Correspondances

1947

P77348

See all 11

Film and audio

Unlock Art: Exploring the Surreal

The Doctor travels through time to bring us the story of Surrealism

Features

Art Term

Automatism

In art, automatism refers to creating art without conscious thought, accessing material from the unconscious mind as part of the ...

Art Term

Frottage

Frottage is a surrealist and ‘automatic’ method of creative production that involves creating a rubbing of a textured surface using ...

Cornelia Parker, ‘Pornographic Drawing’ 1996

Art Term

Decalcomania

Decalcomania is a blotting process whereby paint is squeezed between two surfaces to create a mirror image

Salvador Dalí, ‘Metamorphosis of Narcissus’ 1937

Art Term

Surrealism

A twentieth-century literary, philosophical and artistic movement that explored the workings of the mind, championing the irrational, the poetic and ...