Max Ernst

Galleria Galatea, Turin

Ferruccio Bonetti, Turin (acquired from the above in 1969 and sold: Christie, London, February 2, 2004, lot 66)

Jan Krugier, Geneva (acquired at the above sale)

Acquired from the above in 2005

Honolulu Academy of Arts, Max Ernst, 1952

Turin, Galleria Galatea, Max Ernst, 1969, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Werner Spies, Sigrid & Günter Metken, Max Ernst, Werke 1939-1953, Cologne, 1987, no. 2503, illustrated in black and white p. 111

Very good condition. Oil on board. Colors are a fresh and the medium and board are stable Under UV light, there is one area of retouching about ¾ inch wide in the pink on bottom center.
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Painted while living in Sedona, Arizona with Dorothea Tanning, the present work is one of Ernst's gorgeous post-war paintings that incorporated elements of local Mezo-American culture.  The earring referenced in the English title appears as a trompe l'oeil  in the center of the composition, surrounded by the intricate markings of Ernst's preferred painterly technique.  The fantastic quality and the opulence of color Ernst witnessed in the mountains and deserts of the American West during the 1940s and early 1950s made a strong impression on him that carried over into his art.  The works that he completed during these years evidence the artist's renewed optimism triggered by Europe's post-war recovery, and the present work can be interpreted in this spirit.

In this richly colorful composition, Ernst employed the technique of grattage that he had created during the early days of the Surrealist movement.  This process is most evident near the sharp edges delineating where the palette knife had smoothed and scraped the wet paint, sometimes revealing a darker color beneath the top layer of pigment.  As is the case for the present work, Ernst's paintings of the post-war era exhibited a stylistic duality of composition and disintegration - a suitable metaphor for the times.  According to Werner Spies, his mood during this period "was an ambivalent one, which [Ernst] paraphrased as follows: 'From "The Age of Anxiety" to "The Childhood of Art" only half a rotation of the orthochromatic wheel is required. Between the "Massacre of the Innocents" and "Stepping Through the Looking-Glass" lies an interval merely of one luminous night' ... Ernst remained true to his early decision to strive for a symbolic painting in which open questions, and hence the unfathomable obscurity of existence, took precedence over simplistic positivist explanations and definitive stylistic results" (Spies, Max Ernst, A Retrospective (exhibition catalogue), London, 1991, p. 252).

In 1952 Ernst and Dorothea Tanning were invited to the University of Hawaii to lecture for the students of the art department.  Ben Norris, who was then Chair of the department, befriended the artists and arranged for Ernst to have an exhibition of his work at the Honolulu Academy of Arts.  The present work, which Ernst must have still owned at the time, was lent to that exhibition.