Max Ernst was born in Brühl, Germany, in 1891. From 1910 to 1914 he studied art history, philosophy, psychology and psychiatry at the University of Bonn. During this time he decided to become a painter, participated in an exhibition of the Rhineland Expressionists, and travelled to Paris, where he got to know Guillaume Apollinaire and Robert Delaunay. In 1914 he was drafted as an artillerist. In 1919 he founded Cologne’s Dada group with Hans Arp and Johannes Theodor Baargeld and began to work with collages. In 1921/1922 he spent his summer vacation with artist colleagues in Tarrenz. He moved to Paris in 1922, and a year later to Eaubonne. He first exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris in 1923. In 1924 he travelled to Indo-China and worked closely with the Paris Surrealists. During a vacation in Brittany the following year he produced his first frottages, rubbings on paper of the surface textures of various objects. In 1926 Joan Miró and Ernst collaborated on stage designs. In the following years he came to know Yves Tanguy and Alberto Giacometti. In 1938 Ernst distanced himself more and more from the Paris Surrealists. From 1939 to 1940 he was interned in Les Milles, then in 1941 fled to New York. He returned to Paris in 1953, and in 1954 was awarded the Grand Prize for Painting at the 27th Venice Biennale. He was represented at documenta 2 in Kassel in 1959 and again in 1964 and 1972. He died in Paris in 1976.
