Max Ernst

Galerie Alexandre Iolas, Paris
Werner Arnhold
Acquired from the above in 1997

Werner Spies, Max Ernst, Oeuvre-Katalog, Werke 1954-1963, Cologne, 1998, no. 3442, illustrated p. 203

Max Ernst returned to Paris in the early 1950s, and bearing witness to Europe’s post-war recovery his spirits were at once renewed. In its vibrant palette and rich texture, Ohne titel underscores the optimism palpable in the artist's work from this period. Werner Spies observes that “before the war interest centered mainly on [Ernst’s] activity as an iconographer, the creator of a tightly enciphered image. During these years that have elapsed since the war another aspect of his artistic personality has come to the fore: he now considers the textures employed in his picture not merely as a mode of presentation but as the context of that representation" (Werner Spies, The Return of La Bell Jardiniere Max Ernst 1950-1970, New York, 1971, p. 62).

Werner Spies, in a certificate noting the inclusion of the work in the catalogue rasionné, provides the alternate title Porträt eines Künstlers als Cherubim (Portrait of an Artist as a Cherubim) for this painting.