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Lot Essay
Describing the humorous, playful character of his sculptural work, Max Ernst stated “It’s like a child’s game. I play as if with sand on the beach. I place the forms in a mold and then the game of anthropomorphism begins” (quoted in J. Pech, “Mythology and Mathematics: Max Ernst’s Sculpture,” in Max Ernst: Scultures/Sculptures, exh. cat., Castello di Rivoli, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, 1996, p. 51). Conceived in 1967, Le grand génie (Le grand assistant) captures a sense of Ernst’s whimsical, tongue-in-cheek approach to form, its bold monumentality and hybrid character illustrating his innate ability to create anthropomorphic sculptures of rare poetry, humor, and symbolic power.
While sculptural assemblage had played an important role in Ernst’s oeuvre during his DADA years, a brief sojourn to Switzerland in 1934 proved instrumental in igniting his passion for creating sculpture in the round. During this trip, he spent time with Alberto Giacometti in Maloja, and the pair worked collaboratively on a series of river-smoothed stones they had fished from a nearby stream, adding hand-carved elements and painted forms to their surfaces. This idea of chance as the basis of a work was crucial to Ernst, for whom a prompt of some sort was an essential aspect of his Surrealist vision. Upon his return to Paris, Ernst experimented with creating sculptures from found objects which lived in his studio, which he then molded, worked over and cast in plaster, creating strange configurations as he juxtaposed and fused different elements to one another.
Over the course of the following three decades, Ernst’s sculpture gradually evolved as he explored carving, modelling and casting in different materials, often inspired by his immediate surroundings. By the early 1960s, his forms had become more simplified and streamlined, attaining a new solidity and sense of mass. At this time, Ernst and his wife Dorothea Tanning were living in the small hamlet of Huismes in the Loire Valley, which the artist had described in a letter shortly after the move as “beautiful and gentle and calm” (quoted in W. Spies and J. Drost, eds., Max Ernst: Retrospective, exh. cat., Albertina, Vienna, 2013, p. 279). Inspired by the verdant green landscape and the idyllic beauty of the French countryside, Ernst’s art from this period was rooted in the natural world, his sculptures most often borrowing forms from the animal kingdom. In Le grand génie (Le grand assistant), the hybrid creature appears to be an eclectic mixture of avian and amphibian elements, its features suggesting it is part bird, part frog, part mysterious aquatic beast, simultaneously harking back to representations of Ernst’s avian alter-ego Loplop, while also suggesting a new, fantastical animal plucked from his imagination.
Le grand génie (Le grand assistant) would become the center-piece of Ernst’s designs for the fountain at Amboise, its monumental form gazing down from its perch at the very apex of the monument. The artist had been approached in 1966 by Michel Debré, the newly elected mayor of Amboise, to design a fountain for the center of the town. Ernst saw the commission as an opportunity to pay tribute not only to the region where he had lived for nearly ten years, but also to Leonardo da Vinci, who had spent time in Amboise in 1516. Le grand génie (Le grand assistant) is oriented atop the fountain so that both of its arms point to the two residences in which the Renaissance master is said to have stayed during his time in Amboise—the famous Château du Clos Lucé and the Royal Château d’Amboise. Dedicating the monument “Aux cracheurs, aux drôles, au génie” (“To the spitters, to the funny ones, to the genius”), Ernst undercut the serious nature of the commission for such a public monument, and ensured the sculptural project was infused with his unique brand of humor.
Of the 12 casts of the present sculpture, 8 of which are posthumous, 5 are currently in public institutions, including the Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek; Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich; Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Martigny and Museo Botero, Bogotá.
While sculptural assemblage had played an important role in Ernst’s oeuvre during his DADA years, a brief sojourn to Switzerland in 1934 proved instrumental in igniting his passion for creating sculpture in the round. During this trip, he spent time with Alberto Giacometti in Maloja, and the pair worked collaboratively on a series of river-smoothed stones they had fished from a nearby stream, adding hand-carved elements and painted forms to their surfaces. This idea of chance as the basis of a work was crucial to Ernst, for whom a prompt of some sort was an essential aspect of his Surrealist vision. Upon his return to Paris, Ernst experimented with creating sculptures from found objects which lived in his studio, which he then molded, worked over and cast in plaster, creating strange configurations as he juxtaposed and fused different elements to one another.
Over the course of the following three decades, Ernst’s sculpture gradually evolved as he explored carving, modelling and casting in different materials, often inspired by his immediate surroundings. By the early 1960s, his forms had become more simplified and streamlined, attaining a new solidity and sense of mass. At this time, Ernst and his wife Dorothea Tanning were living in the small hamlet of Huismes in the Loire Valley, which the artist had described in a letter shortly after the move as “beautiful and gentle and calm” (quoted in W. Spies and J. Drost, eds., Max Ernst: Retrospective, exh. cat., Albertina, Vienna, 2013, p. 279). Inspired by the verdant green landscape and the idyllic beauty of the French countryside, Ernst’s art from this period was rooted in the natural world, his sculptures most often borrowing forms from the animal kingdom. In Le grand génie (Le grand assistant), the hybrid creature appears to be an eclectic mixture of avian and amphibian elements, its features suggesting it is part bird, part frog, part mysterious aquatic beast, simultaneously harking back to representations of Ernst’s avian alter-ego Loplop, while also suggesting a new, fantastical animal plucked from his imagination.
Le grand génie (Le grand assistant) would become the center-piece of Ernst’s designs for the fountain at Amboise, its monumental form gazing down from its perch at the very apex of the monument. The artist had been approached in 1966 by Michel Debré, the newly elected mayor of Amboise, to design a fountain for the center of the town. Ernst saw the commission as an opportunity to pay tribute not only to the region where he had lived for nearly ten years, but also to Leonardo da Vinci, who had spent time in Amboise in 1516. Le grand génie (Le grand assistant) is oriented atop the fountain so that both of its arms point to the two residences in which the Renaissance master is said to have stayed during his time in Amboise—the famous Château du Clos Lucé and the Royal Château d’Amboise. Dedicating the monument “Aux cracheurs, aux drôles, au génie” (“To the spitters, to the funny ones, to the genius”), Ernst undercut the serious nature of the commission for such a public monument, and ensured the sculptural project was infused with his unique brand of humor.
Of the 12 casts of the present sculpture, 8 of which are posthumous, 5 are currently in public institutions, including the Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek; Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich; Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Martigny and Museo Botero, Bogotá.