Max Ernst was born on 2 April 1891 in Brühl, near Cologne, the first son of Philipp Ernst, teacher of the deaf and amateur painter, and his wife, Luise, née Kopp. Max Ernst never received any formal artistic training. In 1910-1914 he studied philosophy and psychiatry at Bonn University and took a deep interest in painting.
In 1914 Ernst got acquainted with Jean (Hans) Arp, and their lifelong friendship began. With the outburst of the First World War Ernst was conscripted to the army, where he served in the field artillery till the end of the war, never dropping his interest in art. It was during the war, in 1916, when he took part in the "Sturm" exhibition in Berlin To the same period date his first contacts with Dada artists.
After demobilization Ernst settled in Cologne, where, together with Johannes Theodor Baargeld, a pseudonym for Alfred Grünwald (1892-1927), he founded a group of Dadaists. Their exhibition of 1920 at the Winter Brewery in Cologne was closed by the police on the grounds of obscenity. The works of this period are mostly 'junk' assemblages (e.g. Fruit of a Long Experience, 1919) and collages of printed matter. School text-books, educational placards and mail-order catalogs became his main source of materials. Cut-outs of different objects and patterns supplied by quotations come into absurd compositions, full of sarcasm. (e.g. The Hat Makes the Man. 1920; Dada-Gauguin, 1920, etc.)
Max Ernst died on 1st April 1976 in Paris, one day before his 85th birthday.
Bibliography:
Max Ernst. By P. Waldberg. Paris. 1958.
Max Ernst. Life and Work. By J. Russel. London. 1967.
Max Ernst. By E. Quinn. London. 1977.
Max Ernst. Beyond Painting. By Ulrich Bischoff. Benedict Taschen Verlag. 1987.
Max Ernst and Alchemy: A Magician in Search of Myth (Surrealist) by M. E. Warlick, Franklin Rosemont. Univ of Texas Pr, 2001.
Max Ernst by Edward Quinn. Konemann, 1999.
Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst: The Bride Shared (Clarendon Studies in the History of Art) by David Hopkins. Clarendon Pr, 1998.
Ernst (Colour Library) by Ian Turpin. Phaidon Press Inc., 1993.
Ernst: Pieta or Revolution by Night (Tate Modern Masterpieces) by Malcom Gee. Tate Gallery Pubn, 1986.
Max Ernst, German Painter (1891-1976)
