Max Ernst [antikvár]

Sea-Shells, 1927 Frottage and Oil 16" x 25^8" Collection Alexander lolas New York, Paris, Geneva, Milano A recognition too long delayed I have always retained a vivid and precise recollection of the work of Max Ernst, with which I became acquainted on the eve of the Second World War. Later conversations with Eluard and especially with Desnos had often revived this recollection, whether it was a question of his sets for the production of « Ubu enchaîné» staged by Sylvain Itkine in 1937 at the Comédie des Champs-Elysées, his participation in the International Surrealist Exhibition in January 1938 in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, or his collages for Histoire Naturelle or Une Semaine de Bonté, which Jeanne Bucher kindly offered to show me during my visits to her gallery, where I had also seen a small collection of his paintings and sculptures, together with bindings by Rose Adler. From then on, certain titles and images which had literally fascinated me — In the Stable of the Sphinx, He Who Escaped, The Court of the Dragon — had become so fixed in my memory that many years later I rediscovered them, intact and almost obsessive. Then I was convinced: such an artist compelled recognition, with an obviousness which admitted of no discussion.