If someone asks Jürgen Pech who Max Ernst was, his eyes will widen, his mouth will form a big round ‘o’ and he will exclaim: “He was the great inventor of the 20th century!” Then he will start laughing. Max Ernst (Brühl, Germany, 1891 – Paris, France, 1976) was – perhaps – the most important figure of the surrealist movement of the last century. An art theorist, a philosopher, a writer, an actor, a cartoonist, a sculptor, a visual artist, a film director. A revolutionary. One of the personalities linked to the Surrealist Manifesto written by André Breton in 1924 and which marked the formal beginning of an artistic movement that set out to explore the world of the subconscious and dreams, challenging the social norms of the time.
Max Ernst was also a German who became a French national after spending much of his life in France, where he fled to leave the ravages of the Great War behind. Jürgen Pech, for his part, is a man of today, of now. A man who establishes himself as a former curator of the Max Ernst museum in Brühl. Pech is also an art historian and organizes the exhibition together with the historian, writer, researcher and curator Martina Mazzotta. Max Ernst: surrealism, art and cinemaan exhibition that aims to offer an unprecedented journey through the life and work of the multifaceted artist structured through his relationship with cinema.
The collection, which can be visited at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid from December 5 to May 4, 2025, has more than 300 different pieces and several unpublished works, such as the film in which the first model appears and later war photojournalist Lee Miller, a close friend of the artist. An important presence in her life, as was Caresse Crosby, also a colleague, who would become a millionaire after inventing and selling the first modern bra. “She was one of the most prominent figures in the literary and artistic circles of the 20th century,” Mazzotta explains to eldiario.es in a walk behind the scenes of the exhibition hours before its opening to the public.
Crosby, whose real name was Mary Phelps Jacob – she would adopt the surname of her second husband, the poet Harry Crosby – was one of Ernst’s most faithful friends and supported him financially during much of his career, even when his marriage with Peggy Guggenheim it was over. “And they both also had a close relationship,” says Mazzotta.
“She was something like a Gertrude Stein of the surrealists,” Pech illustrates. Black Sun Press, a publishing house he founded with his partner, published writers such as Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce and Henry Miller. But the main patron, without a doubt, was Peggy Guggenheim. Art collector, art addict, immensely rich.
An “unfair” reputation as a womanizer
“Max Ernst has a widespread reputation as a womanizer that is quite unfair,” says Mazzotta, who points out that it all comes from Guggenheim’s spite when they divorced. “They had a complex and turbulent relationship, marked by both of their artistic and independent lives, and he ended up breaking up with her,” explains the curator. Guggenheim, wounded by what she considered a personal betrayal – he left her for Dorothea Tanning, another great surrealist artist – did not exactly count on “delights” about her ex-husband.
“If you see who his friends were, if you look at how he portrays women in his works, you see clearly that that is not true. “He lived love and passion with great intensity and had several companions throughout his life, but always one at a time,” Mazzotta insists while sweeping around the exhibition room dedicated to that with a gesture; his gaze on them.
The German is known for falling into the arms of Gala Éluard-Dalí, Marie-Berthe Aurenche, Meret Oppenheim, Leonora Carrington, Peggy Guggenheim or Leonor Fini until reaching Dorothea Tanning. Last companion of the artist with whom he would share thirty years of his life. But for Mazzotta, the fact that many have focused on his personal life makes him forget the most important thing: “He was a total artist, very rich in all his work. A renaissance man in the 20th century,” he continues to point out that his figure is practically unfathomable, “so many things can be said about him, there are so many possible stories, so much to investigate,” he continues to ensure that he can be compared to Leonardo DaVinci. .
Portrait of an unfathomable man
In addition to many other things, Max Ernst was a man who painted himself sitting on Dostoivesky’s lap in Au rendez-vous of friends(1922). A collective and imaginary portrait that encapsulates his participation in the surrealist movement and that brings together key figures of the artistic and literary avant-garde, both contemporary and historical.
This work – present in the exhibition – was later included in the black list of “degenerate art” of the Nazi regime, along with other paintings by Ernst, such as The beautiful garden (1923), presented at the Reich’s Entartete Kunst exhibition in 1937, and then lost forever.
Likewise, the exhibition includes prestigious works such as paintings The Temptations of Saint Anthony (Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg) or Lot’s daughters (Pietzsch Collection, Berlin), and sculptures such as Homme (Max Ernst Museum, Brühl).
Regarding cinema as the guiding thread of the story that Mazzotta and Pech make of the surrealist, the exhibition has fragments of films and immersive projections that, in his opinion, establish a constant and dynamic dialogue with all his artistic production. Thus, excerpts from films such as An Andalusian dog and The golden age by Luis Buñuel, The dreams that money can buy and 8 × 8: A chess sonata in 8 moves by Hans Richter, Max Ernst – My wandering, my restlessness by Peter Schamoni, and several short films such as A week of kindness by Jean Desvilles, Maximilian by Peter Schamoni, or two more pieces by Julien Levy, now shown to the public for the first time.
Exiled after having served on the front in the First World War, later artistically persecuted by Nazism. Arrested in France, fled to the United States with the help of Guggenheim, returned to Europe after the war. Critical of violence and oppression. Creator without pause. Max Ernst was a man who did –almost– everything.
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