Max Ernst

Galerie Edouard Loeb, Paris
Janet S. Fleisher Gallery, Philadelphie
Acquis du précédent par le propriétaire actuel

Werner Spies, Sigrid & Günter Metken, Max Ernst, Œuvre-Katalog, Werke 1964-1969, Houston & Cologne, 2007, no. 4051, illustré p. 105 (incorrectement daté 1965)

The board is sound. Apart from a 1.5 x 1cm. area and a 2 cm vertical line of retouching in the lower right corner, this work is in very good condition.
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signed 'Max Ernst ' (lower right); signed 'Max Ernst', datef '59', and titled 'oiseau noire suivi d'une femme blanche et d'un soleil rouge' (on the back), oil on panel. Painted in 1959.

Le thème de l'oiseau est récurrent et emblématique de l'œuvre de Max Ernst. Sous des formes variées, tantôt Horneborm, tantôt Dadamax ou Loplop, il se décline et s'impose comme l'alter ego de l'artiste. Entièrement issu de son imaginaire, pure créature de son panthéon personnel, Max Ernst ne dissuade pas ses amis surréalistes de considérer la figure de l'oiseau comme un autre lui-même. Ainsi, dans le poème qu'il intitule Max Ernst et qu'il lui consacre en 1926, Paul Eluard écrit : "Dévoré par les plumes et soumis à la mer, / Il a laissé passer son ombre dans le vol / Des oiseaux de la liberté[...]" (cité in Max Ernst, peintures pour Paul Eluard, Paris, 1969, p. 20).

Parfois, les oiseaux s'enlèvent sur un fond neutre et monochrome. D'autres fois représentés en cage ils témoignent de l'ambivalence de l'image même de l'oiseau. Symbole de liberté et de l'aspiration qu'a toujours eu l'homme de pouvoir voler, il arrive qu'il soit aussi et a contrario celui de la captivité et de l'enfermement.

Comme le fait justement remarquer Diane Waldman : "Le thème de l'oiseau, auquel Max Ernst lui-même s'identifie, resurgit de manière cyclique au cours de sa carrière. Si l'origine de cette fascination est à rechercher du côté des souvenirs d'enfance de Max Ernst, il pourrait par ailleurs renvoyer à l'œuvre de Léonard dont l'attirance pour le volatile a été analysée par Freud dans son essai Eine Kindheitserrinnerung des Leonardo da Vinci, 1910. L'oiseau représente, le vol et le fantastique, et, de toute évidence, l'intellect" (in Max Ernst (catalogue d'exposition), The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1975, pp. 40-41).

Throughout Ernst's œuvre, the image of the bird recurs in various guises as Hornebom, Dadamax or Loplop, in all instances presenting the alter ego of the artist. Although entirely his own invention and a part of his personal mythology, Ernst did not deter his Surrealist friends from seeing this creature as his other self, as various works and statements show. In 1926 Paul Eluard wrote a poem entitled Max Ernst, which contains the following lines: "Devoured by feathers and left to the sea / He has let his shadow pass into flight / Of the birds of freedom..." (quoted in Werner Spies, Max Ernst, Loplop, London, 1983, p. 10).

Occasionally birds are depicted against a neutral monochromatic background such as in the present work, sometimes in a cage, where they reflect the ambivalence of the bird as a symbol of freedom, human potential and flights of fancy on one side, and a symbol of entrapment and a victim on the other. As Diane Waldman writes: "The bird theme, in which Ernst identifies himself with a bird, re-emerges from time to time throughout his career. This fascination is a recapitulation of Ernst's childhood memories and also appears to be a reference to Leonardo, whose fixation with a vulture was documented by Freud in his essay, Eine Kindheitserrinnerung des Leonardo da Vinci, 1910. The bird stands for the flight and the fantastic and, of course, the intellect" (Max Ernst (exhibition catalogue), The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1975, pp. 40 & 41).