Max Ernst : a retrospective
From the Publisher: Max Ernst (1891-1976) was a pivotal figure in the history of twentieth-century art. A leader of the Dada movement in Germany, he later joined the circle of writers and artists gathered in Paris around Andre Breton, the unofficial founder of the Surrealist movement. At the outset of World War II, Ernst fled Germany for the United States, first going to New York and eventually settling in Sedona, Arizona. Ernst returned to Europe in 1950 and continued to explore Surrealist imagery and methods throughout his life. This important book accompanies the first retrospective exhibition of Ernst's work held in the United States in thirty years. It examines his pioneering accomplishments in painting, collage, and sculpture and considers his use of the techniques of frottage, grattage, and decalcomania. Also featured are Ernst's unique collage novels-narratives comprising disparate images culled from nineteenth-century engravings and combined in surreal, unsettling compositions. Leading scholars write on various aspects of Ernst's life and art: Werner Spies on Ernst in America; Ludger Derenthal on Ernst and politics; Pepe Karmel on Ernst and contemporary art; Thomas Gaehtgens on Ernst and the old masters; and Robert Storr on the collage novels
Print Book, English, ©2005
Metropolitan Museum of Art ; Yale University Press, New York, New Haven, ©2005
Exhibition catalogues
xvii, 301 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 32 cm.
9781588391513, 9781588391520, 9780300107180, 1588391515, 1588391523, 0300107188
57422267
Sponsor's statement / Nikolaus Schweickart and Andrea Firmenich
Director's foreword / Philippe de Montebello
Acknowledgments / Werner Spies and Sabine Rewald
Lenders to the exhibition
Introduction / Sabine Rewald
Nightmare and deliverance / Werner Spies
Max Ernst and politics / Ludger Derenthal
Max Ernst and the great masters / Thomas Gaehtgens
Past imperfect, present conditional / Robert Storr
Max Ernst in America : "vox angelica" / Werner Spies
Terrors of the encyclopedia: Max Ernst and contemporary art / Pepe Karmel
Works in the exhibition
Chronology / Catherine Heroy
Selected bibliography
Index
Photograph credits
Published in conjunction with an exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Apr. 7-July 10, 2005