Ernst, Max

PAINTER, SCULPTOR, GRAPHICAL ARTIST (GERMANY)
BORN 2 Apr 1891, Brühl, Nordrhein-Westfalen - DIED 1 Apr 1976, Paris
GRAVE LOCATION Paris: Père Lachaise, Rue du Repos 16 (division 87 (colombarium, case 02102))

Master of surrealism. Ernst studied philosophy and psychology at the University in Bonn and was influenced by Van Gogh. Together with Hans Arp and T.J. Baargeld he founded the Dada group 'Zentrale W/3'. In 1918 he married Luise Strauß (they had a son). In 1922 he went to Paris where his close friend Paul Éluard also lived. From 1922 until 1924 he had an affair with Éluard's wife Gala. In 1927 he married Marie-Berthe Aurenche, the sister of Jean Aurenche. In 1936 they divorced. During the next few years he was in a relationship with the painter Leonora Carrington.

In 1937 his work was shown at the Entartete Kunst exhibition and in 1938 he left the surrealist movement. In 1938 Peggy Guggenheim bought several works from him for her art gallery in London. In 1939 he was interned in France as an undesirable foreigner but he was soon released. After Germany occupied France he was arrested by the Gestapo. He escaped and he fled to America with the help of Guggenheim. He married her to enable him to live in the USA during the war. Peggy Guggenheim frequently preferred other men and they seperated in 1943. They divorced in 1946. In the same hear married the painter Dorothea Tanning in the same year in a double ceremony with Man Ray and Juliet P. Browner.

He lived with Dorothea in Arizona before returning to France in 1953. In 1954 he received the Granz Prize for painting at the Biennale of Venice and in 1956 he became a member of the Academy of Berlin. He died in 1976 in Paris. Dorothea returned to the USA in 1980 and she died in New York in 2012.

Family
• Wife: Aurenche, Marie-Berthe (1927-1936, Paris) (divorce or separation)

Related persons
• has a connection with Arp, Hans
• was a friend of Éluard, Paul
• knew Grosz, George
• visited Rosenbaum, Wladimir

Images

'Microbe vu à travers un tempérament'.
(1964)
Picture by Pat/Androom (Jun 1998)

 

The niche of Max Ernst at the columbarium at Père Lachaise, Paris.
Picture by Androom (28 Aug 2001)

 

Sources
Schilderkunst van A tot Z, REBO, Lisse, 1990
Max Ernst - Wikipedia


Ernst, Prinz von Sachsen-Meiningen

Published: 01 Jan 2006
Last update: 25 Sep 2023