Picture "Oiseau en Péril" (1975)
Picture "Oiseau en Péril" (1975)
Quick info
limited, 100 copies | numbered | signed | colour etching on Japanese paper | framed | size 57.5 x 47 cm
Detailed description
Picture "Oiseau en Péril" (1975)
This sheet is from the rare series "Oiseaux en Péril" from 1975, which is considered the last joint work between Max Ernst and his fourth wife Dorothea Tanning. The portfolio of eight aquatint etchings depicting endangered birds served to illustrate a book of poems by his wife.
While the first sheets each show pairs of birds - in the present sheet, for example, a large and a small penguin - a single young bird appears on the last sheet, running towards the future with wide eyes and a wobbly step. Max Ernst reduces the birds to their essentials: through sweeping lines, he draws beaks, eyes and wings, the lines appearing light and unselfconscious. In complete contrast, nails, scissors and firearms hover around the birds, interrupting the naivety of the minimalist drawing.
Only six months after its publication, Max Ernst died at the age of 85.
Original colour etching, 1975. Edition: 100 copies on Japanese paper, numbered and hand-signed.motif size 30,5 x 25,5 cm. Sheet size 54.5 x 42 cm. Size in frame 57.5 x 47 cm as shown.
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About Max Ernst
1891-1976
Max Ernst was one of the initiators of the Surrealist movement and also remained one of its most important and versatile representatives. Alongside Picasso, he is considered the artist who had the most lasting influence on the development of modernism.
At the sight of a heavily grained, washed-out floor, he had his first spontaneous visions of birds, landscapes, masks, and figures. Max Ernst fixed these visions in his paintings. He created bird people and mask wearers, rational worlds of form that placed him in the ranks of the great Surrealists.
His paintings - if still available at all - are auctioned at Christie's and Sotheby's for millions and are in the most important collections in the world.
The field of graphic arts, that includes artistic representations, which are reproduced by various printing techniques.
Printmaking techniques include woodcuts, copperplate engraving, etching, lithography, serigraphy, among others.
Collective term for the painters and sculptors of the 20th century, such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall and others, whose works are now considered iconic artworks of our times.