BILBAO.- The museum has received on loan an exceptional set of fifty-four works by Max Ernst (Brühl, Germany 1891–Paris, 1976), one of the most prominent figures in contemporary art who played a crucial role in the origin and development of the surrealist movement.


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The deposit—slated to last five years—includes fourteen paintings, six drawings and the thirty-four collotypes that are part of the celebrated portfolio entitled Histoire naturelle. With the exception of one frottage dated from 1957, all the works were made between 1922 and 1928, a stage of experimentation in which Ernst evolved from his initial interest in dadaism towards the more transgressive strains of surrealism. Within this context, the German artist was able to contribute theoretical, technical and creative novelties that are considered fundamental in the development of twentieth-century art today.

Much of this set—the fourteen oil paintings, four drawings and two frottages—which are joined by the temporary loans of a sculpture and different documents for this exhibition, comprise this new edition of The Guest Work programme. The exhibition route has been planned by Miriam Alzuri Milanés, the museum’s modern and contemporary art conservator, with the goal of highlighting Ernst’s creative originality.

The works come from a private collection in London originally from Spain that was inherited by its current owner, the grandson of the prestigious English gallery owner Aram Mouradian (Southport, United Kingdom, 1892–Paris, 1974). It includes the works he purchased—directly from the artist and via third parties—and kept for himself, and they give a good idea of both his predilection for Ernst and the artist’s many interests.

The works that Mouradian acquired from Ernst in 1927, which are now being displayed, include the drawings La belle jardinière [The Beautiful Gardener](c.1921–1922), Deux enfants dans une chambre percée [Two Children in a Pierced Room] (1923) and L’ombre [The Shadow] (1923), and the paintings Deux jeunes filles en de belles poses [Two Girls in Beautiful Poses] (1924),Cage et oiseaux [Cage and Birds] (1924), Les mains aux oiseaux [Hands with Birds] (1925), Jeunes gens piétinant leur mère [Youths Trampling Their Mother] (1927), Petit monument aux oiseaux [Small Monument to Birds] (1927), Forêt et soleil bleu [Forest and Blue Sun] (1927), Forêts-arêtes [Fishbone-Forest] (1927) and Fleurs-écailles [Flower-Shells] (1928).

Those purchased from third parties include Danseur sous le ciel (Le Noctambule) [Dancer Under the Sky (The Sleepwalker)] (c.1922), L’Éloge de la folie [In Praise of Folly] (1924) and the original drawing ofLes éclairs au-dessous de quatorze ans[Teenage Lighting] (1925), which was later reproduced as a collotype for the Histoire Naturelle portfolio.

As repeatedly stated last year with the commemoration of the 1924 publication of the first Surrealist Manifesto by André Breton, the 1920s were a time of extraordinary intellectual and creative ferment, in which art and the world of ideas welcomed the huge transformations springing from the exploration of territories beyond reason, like the unconscious, dreams and the imagination.

Even though he was a core figure in surrealism and left a major mark on Spanish art through the dissemination of his works in specialised magazines and his participation in exhibitions at that time (at the Ateneo of Tenerife in 1935 and the Modern Art museum of Madrid in 1936, on the initiative of its director, the art critic from Bilbao Juan de la Encina), Ernst is barely represented in public collections in Spain. Two works are conserved at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and four at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, which are now joined by this extraordinary set deposited at the Bilbao museum.

Aram Mouradian (Southport, United Kingdom, 1892–Paris, 1974)

Born into a wealthy family of Armenian extraction that worked in trade, Mouradian moved to Paris after the First World War. In 1925, he and the Dutchman Leonard van Leer joined forces to open an art gallery at number 41, Rue de Seine, which would end up becoming one of the most influential galleries of its day. The gallery’s first name was Van Leer, but after he retired it became Mouradian and Vallotton, and later Les Arts Plastiques et Modernes. The gallery was a prominent player in the Parisian art scene for decades, until 1974.

In the early years and until the mid-1930s, it primarily worked with artists associated with surrealism and the Paris School, like Jean Launois, André Derain, Raoul Dufy, Amedeo Modigliani, Jules Pascin, Chaim Soutine, Constant Permeke, Francis Picabia, Roland Penrose, Moïse Kisling, Man Ray and Joan Miró. Prominent among them was Max Ernst. Mouradian was particularly interested in sharing Ernst’s works, and Mouradian organised his first two surrealist solo exhibitions in 1926 and 1927.

Indeed, this professional relationship, which turned into a friendship between the painter and the gallery owner, is addressed in Museum Notebook 4 in a text written by the writer and philosopher Georges Sebbag, regarded as one of the prime experts on the surrealist movement.

Max Ernst (Brühl, Germany, 1891–Paris, 1976)

A painter, sculptor and author of influential works in the fields of collage and graphic works, Max Ernst was a self-taught artist. He studied art, philosophy, literature and psychiatry at the University of Bonn and started his artistic career in the 1900s, interested in the languages of expressionism and cubism.

After the First World War—in which he fought—he became associated with the dadaist group in Cologne and kept in touch with the groups in Berlin, Zurich and Paris. During that period, he made his first collages and photomontages, which were displayed in 1921 at the Parisian bookshop Au Sans Pareil owned by André Breton and Simone Kahn.

In 1922, he moved to Paris, where he became an essential figure in the surrealist movement thanks to his creative imagination and his ability to incorporate new techniques into his works. Examples include frottage–which he is considered to have invented, grattage and decalcomania, which was invented by the Spanish artist Óscar Domínguez in 1935.

In 1938, he left the surrealist group and moved to Saint-Martin d’Ardèche, a town north of Avignon, with the English painter and naturalised Mexican citizen Leonora Carrington.

Three years later, after the Second World War had started, he moved to the United States, where he married New York-based collector and patron, Peggy Guggenheim.

After that, he lived in Arizona for several years with the US surrealist artist Dorothea Tanning. In 1953, he returned to Paris, by then an internationally renowned figure.


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