Max Ernst

German, 1891 - 1976

Explore Selected Works

Max Ernst, Three Sharks in Search of a Victim, 1967, color etching and aquatint with hand coloring, Gift of Jacob Kainen, 2002.98.276

Three Sharks in Search of a Victim

Max Ernst · 1967 · color etching and aquatint with hand coloring ·  Accession ID  2002.98.276

Max Ernst, Homage à Rimbaud (Hommage to Rimbaud), 1961, etching and aquatint in blue-gray and pale pink, Rosenwald Collection, 1964.8.725

Homage à Rimbaud (Hommage to Rimbaud)

Max Ernst · 1961 · etching and aquatint in blue-gray and pale pink ·  Accession ID  1964.8.725

Max Ernst, Jacket cover for Antonin Artaud's "Galapagos-Les Iles du bout du monde", Paris, 1955, 1955, etching in black and yellow-green, Rosenwald Collection, 1964.8.726

Jacket cover for Antonin Artaud's "Galapagos-Les Iles du bout du monde", Paris, 1955

Max Ernst · 1955 · etching in black and yellow-green ·  Accession ID  1964.8.726

Two abstracted creatures, one resembling a goat holding a staff and the other a stylized mermaid, sit facing us on on a rectangular base in this free-standing bronze sculpture. The head of the goat creature, to our left in this photograph, has wide horns to either side of a ridge suggesting a heavy brow. The triangular head tapers down to a ring that suggests the muzzle of the goat. The body is made up of broad geometric shapes. There is a stylized phallus where the body meets the block we read as a lap, and two rounded forms suggestive of human feet protrude from the base of that block. The creature reaches out with his right arm, to our left, to wrap a large, human fist around the staff. The staff swells and narrows in angular hourglass shapes and is topped by what could be a rectangular, abstracted face with two eye holes, a flattened nose, and a slit for a mouth. The goat’s other hand rests near that knee, and in it he holds a creature about the height of the goat’s torso. That smaller creature has a scooped, cup-like form where the head would be, a long neck, and two mounds reminiscent of breasts above a textured fish’s tail. Below, as if affixed to the front of the goat’s lap, a disk-like face has two rings for eyes and a tongue protruding from a round mouth. Other forms over the forehead and one next to the face read as flattened hands or claws. Next to the large goat creature, to our right, the second, tall creature has a head made up of a disk with two mounds for eyes and a beak stacked in front of a second, larger disk. A form like an abstracted fish or arrow moves through or behind her head. The creature has a long, slender neck and an armless torso, shaped roughly like the body of a violin. The torso has rounded shoulders, two mounds to suggest breasts, and a hole for a belly button. Her textured fish’s tail curves down so the fin falls slightly over the front of the base on which they sit. The bronze surface of the sculpture varies from dark brown to faint gold where the light catches it. The sculpture and bronze base sit on a white platform. The floor beneath is pale pink, shiny marble and the wall behind is made up of stone panels streaked with gray.
Max Ernst, Capricorn, model 1947, cast 1975, bronze, Gift of the Collectors Committee, 1979.30.1

Capricorn

Max Ernst · model 1947, cast 1975 · bronze ·  Accession ID  1979.30.1

Blades of forest, pine, and sage green intermixed with slivers of cobalt and sky blue, crimson red, and rose pink create a band of abstracted tree-like forms across this horizontal painting. The blues, red, and pink are concentrated on a structure, presumably a tree, at the front center. To our left of center, geometric shapes like circles, triangles, and rectangles create the impression of a beaked bird, with each shape being fractured into bands of emerald green, royal blue, brick red, and butter yellow. Closer examination finds other birds nearly obscured within the dark, accordion-like patterns of the leaves, including a flock of red-eyed, black, razor-like birds to our left and another creature with a bird-like head and humanoid body to our right. Across the top third of the composition, the sky is pale blue to our left and brightens to shell pink and then light yellow around a disk-like form, to our right. A couple geometric, stylized shapes read as clouds near the upper left corner. Next to a tiny, white line drawing of two abstracted, animal-like forms in the lower right corner, the artist signed his name, “max ernst,” in white paint and the date, “1939” in red.
Max Ernst, A Moment of Calm, 1939, oil on canvas, Gift of Dorothea Tanning Ernst, 1982.34.1

A Moment of Calm

Max Ernst · 1939 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1982.34.1

Max Ernst, Conjugal Diamonds, 1925, frottage in graphite on cream paper, Gift of Helen Porter and James T. Dyke, 2006.140.1

Conjugal Diamonds

Max Ernst · 1925 · frottage in graphite on cream paper ·  Accession ID  2006.140.1