(Surrealism)

Max Ernst, Dorothea Tanning, and William N. Copley.  A miniature theater composed of a proscenium (7 3/4 x 11 in.; 188 x 279 mm) with collaged elements (a steel engraving of a theater, marbled paper, gold paper and red yarn) mounted on cardboard and attached to a wooden stand with two wooden spindles used for spooling scrolls of paper.  Three scrolls of glassine paper each with collaged elements (each approximately 2 5/8 x 120 in.), one each by Ernst, Tanning, and Copley, each signed by the artist, each wrapped around a cardboard spool, and with one extra spool.  [New York ?, late 1940's].  Some slight wear to theater including tear in marbled paper, collaged scrolls in good condition.

Claire Copley and Alan Eisenberg

A very fine Surrealist toy theater by Max Ernst, his wife Dorothea Tanning, and William N. Copley, from the collection of Copley's daughter Claire.  It is not known which of the artists made the theater itself, but the wonderful collaged scrolls, made to be unrolled on the spindles hidden behind the proscenium, are each signed. All three have autobiographical elements of interest to any student of the Surrealism. 

Max Ernst's scroll/story is titled, in crayon, pencil and collage, "Adam and Evening.  Supermystery by Max Ernst.  The Most Beautiful Illicit Love Tragedy."  An early 20th-century magazine illustration of a boy named Max Ernst, who disappeared in Detroit, is surrounded by supernatural images such as a hand with talons, apprehensive faces, and a photo of an owl attacking a man.  A photo of Ernst himself appears later in the scroll.

The Copley scroll is titled in red paint, "CPLY & Gloria presente 'Sins of Avignon'".  Gloria is Copley's companion Gloria de Herrera.  This scroll is notable for its use of portraits clipped from snapshots.  For example, after the word "SIN" in purple crayon is a photo of Man Ray, holding a Dixie cup and with a signed reading "69" stuck in his fedora.  There is a snapshot of Copley at his easel, another of Ernst in a white summer suit, Tanning and Juliet Man Ray also appear.  Several photographes of dolls similar to the ones found in Joseph Cornell's boxes add a melancholy element to the story, as do steel-engraved images of a revolver and a swarming hornets' nest.

Tanning's "Eau Lumiere Éléctrique et Opéra à Tous les Étages.  Film docementaire de Dorothea" is a small lyrical masterpiece.  Printed music and scenes of 19th-century bourgeois families dining soon give way to a profusion of steel-engraved owls and exotic birds' nests, dancers and acrobats, bored lap dogs and a cow with an owl's head being led down a country lane.

A very fine example of the Surrealists' penchant for collaborative projects and a marvellous example of Surrealism in exile in the United States.