Rara Avis

Currently not on view

Rara Avis

1942

Max Ernst (American (born Germany), 1891–1976) Published by VVV, New York

Max Ernst described his childhood imagination as "excursions into the world of marvels, chimeras, phantoms, poets, monsters, philosophers, birds, women, lunatics, magi, trees, eroticism, poisons, mathematics, and so forth." From the early 1920s associated with the Dada and Surrealist groups in Paris, Ernst was preoccupied with bird imagery and especially with birds that metamorphose-sometimes frighteningly-into humans. He described his works as vibrating "with the incongruous and irrational qualities generally attributed to dreams although artists know they are the original breath of reality. . . . Birds become men and men become birds. Catastrophes become hilarious. Everything is astonishing, heartbreaking and possible."

Currently not on view

Object Details

Titles:

Rara Avis
From VVV Portfolio (New York: VVV, 1942)

Date:

1942

Artists:

Max Ernst (American (born Germany), 1891–1976) Published by VVV, New York

Medium:

Wax crayon on orange wove paper

Dimensions:

Sheet: 17 15/16 × 14 inches (45.6 × 35.6 cm)

Classification:

Drawings

Credit Line:

The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950

Accession Number:

1950-134-973

Geography:

Made in United States, North and Central America

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Currently not on view