German-French artist and a protégé of Andre Breton. Slender and handsome, Ernst pioneered the research of textural surfaces and graphic surrealist collage. He was not considered a naturally excellent painter, though he did produce a few great canvases such as the comic, ominous “Celebes” in 1921. He liked to experiment with exotic painting techniques, and his work tended to juxtapose images in the same way that thinkers can juxtapose thoughts. While a philosophy student, he was overwhelmed with Cézanne and van Gogh, and first painted as an impressionist in 1911.
He met Hans Arp in 1914 and they became friends and sometimes collaborators. At the outbreak of World War I, he was living as an artist in Paris, but chose to return to Germany where he served in WW I. He later said that he died on 8/01/1914, and was reborn on 11/11/1918. (Actually, his only war wounds came from a rifle recoil and a mule’s kick.) After the War, he began collage and surrealistic works and was active in the German Dada Movement. When Breton, the Parisian chief instigator of surrealism received some collages from Ernst in 1921, he said that they “moved us in a way we never experienced again.”
At heart, Ernst was a collage maker, experimenting with, among other things, old wood-engraving blocks. He remained a surrealist for his whole life. He also did sculptor and created a series of books of drawings as well as many writings. His work in the ’20s and ’30s was inventive and haunting, one of the great masters of that period.
Ernst moved to the U.S. and became a naturalized citizen in 1958, marrying several times. He died in Paris on 4/01/1976.
Link to Wikipedia biography