Max ERNST – 1925
Jack of all trades again; prospects gloomy. Eluard continued to help. Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, a contract with Jacques Viot, courtier en chambre and adventurer, who had already signed on Miro and later, on Max’s recommendation, was to place Arp under contract, too. Arp, Ernst, Miro – the trio that would win accolades a quarter of a century later in Venice.
Max, at the age of thirty-four, was at last able to settle down to his ‘work’, for the first time in his life. And to rent his first studio (in Rue Tourlaque in Montmartre).
Art history tends to be presented chronologically. The life of an artist or school is traced through their active years. My intent is to display the cross-current: an overview of what a variety of artists were creating at a specific point in time. I chose the year 1925 not only to illustrate the rich diversity of styles being used in Western art at the time, but to emphasize the enduring vitality of these works. Although painted [eighty] years ago, each canvas retains the capacity to jar the sensitivity of the average viewer.