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Lot Essay
This work will be included in the supplementary volume of the complete work of Max Ernst in preparation edited by Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. mult. Werner Spies in collaboration with Dr. Sigrid Metken and Dr. Jürgen Pech.
The surrealist artist Max Ernst was deeply impressed by Giorgio de Chirico and took on his concepts of creating pictures within pictures, often copying his own earlier works or elements of earlier works. De Chirico, however, received strong criticism for this practice, particularly from his friend André Breton who argued that the Italian artist was going too far, copying his own successful early works and even predating recent works in order to earn money. In the 1920s, the relationship between the Surrealists and De Chirico was dominated by their clashing concepts around authenticity and forgery, and the Surrealists mocked their colleague in a number of their art works. Max Ernst took this mockery further and made exact copies of a few of De Chirico’s works, continuing to appropriate his friend’s art, all in the spirit of Dada.
In L'énigme (after the painting La conquête du Philosophe, 1914, by Giorgio de Chirico), the artist not only appropriates some of his friend’s most popular elements like the canon, clock, chimney and the building on the right, but he also signs it 'Chirico' and dates it '1913', thus ridiculing both the copying and the pre-dating De Chirico was accused of. Jürgen Pech points out that even in 1942, when Max Ernst had just escaped to New York with his now wife Peggy Guggenheim, the present work was published in the catalogue of the 1942 exhibition First Papers of Surrealism in New York, alongside one of the copies Ernst had made in oil. Ironically, both were illustrated under De Chirico’s name (J. Pech, 'Was der Taucher vor dem Sprung nicht wissen kann, Giorgio de Chirico und Max Ernst', in exh.cat. Arnold Böcklin, Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst, Eine Reise ins Ungewisse, Bern, 1998, p. 323 ff.). In the same year, Peggy Guggenheim quotes Ernst in her seminal publication Art of this Century `Every artwork not signed by myself is an imitation’ (quoted after Jürgen Pech, ibid.).
The surrealist artist Max Ernst was deeply impressed by Giorgio de Chirico and took on his concepts of creating pictures within pictures, often copying his own earlier works or elements of earlier works. De Chirico, however, received strong criticism for this practice, particularly from his friend André Breton who argued that the Italian artist was going too far, copying his own successful early works and even predating recent works in order to earn money. In the 1920s, the relationship between the Surrealists and De Chirico was dominated by their clashing concepts around authenticity and forgery, and the Surrealists mocked their colleague in a number of their art works. Max Ernst took this mockery further and made exact copies of a few of De Chirico’s works, continuing to appropriate his friend’s art, all in the spirit of Dada.
In L'énigme (after the painting La conquête du Philosophe, 1914, by Giorgio de Chirico), the artist not only appropriates some of his friend’s most popular elements like the canon, clock, chimney and the building on the right, but he also signs it 'Chirico' and dates it '1913', thus ridiculing both the copying and the pre-dating De Chirico was accused of. Jürgen Pech points out that even in 1942, when Max Ernst had just escaped to New York with his now wife Peggy Guggenheim, the present work was published in the catalogue of the 1942 exhibition First Papers of Surrealism in New York, alongside one of the copies Ernst had made in oil. Ironically, both were illustrated under De Chirico’s name (J. Pech, 'Was der Taucher vor dem Sprung nicht wissen kann, Giorgio de Chirico und Max Ernst', in exh.cat. Arnold Böcklin, Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst, Eine Reise ins Ungewisse, Bern, 1998, p. 323 ff.). In the same year, Peggy Guggenheim quotes Ernst in her seminal publication Art of this Century `Every artwork not signed by myself is an imitation’ (quoted after Jürgen Pech, ibid.).