ERNST, MAX
1891 Bruehl–1976 Paris

Title: Loplop presents.
Date: 1930.
Technique: Frottage, pencil on paper.
Notation: Signed lower right: max ernst.
Frame: Framed. Not examined out of the frame.



Provenance:
- - Willy Bösiger, Zurich

- Ernst O.E. Fischer, Krefeld (acquired from the previous owner in 1972)

- Private collection, Switzerland


Exhibition:
- Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 1974 (label)

- Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, 1975 (label)

- The Seibu Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 1977 (label)

- Museum of Modern Art, Kobe, 1977 (label)

- Kunsthaus Zürich, 1978 (label)

- Kunsthalle Tübingen, 1988 (label)

- Kunstmuseum Bern, 1988/89 (label)

- Hamburger Kunsthalle, 1989

- Art Collection of North Rhine-Westphalia, Düsseldorf 1989 (label)


Literature:
- Spies, Werner (ed.): Max Ernst - Oeuvre-Katalog, Works 1929–1938, Houston/Cologne 1979, cat. rais. no. 1717, ill.

- Exhib. cat. Surrealität-Bildrealität 1924-1974, Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 1974 / Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (as: ‚In den unzähligen Bildern des Lebens‘), 1975, catalogue no. 64

- Exhib. cat. Exhibition of Works by Max Ernst, The Seibu Museum of Art, Tokyo/Museum of Modern Art Hyogo, Kobe 1977, cat. no. 70

- Exhib. cat. Max Ernst: Frottagen, Collagen, Zeichnungen, Graphik, Bücher, Kunsthaus Zürich, 1978, cat. no. 123

- Spies, Werner: Loplop – Die Selbstdarstellung des Künstlers, Munich 1982, ill. 49

- Exhib. cat. Max Ernst – Collagen, Kunsthalle Tübingen/Kunstmuseum Bern, 1988/89, cat. no. 169



- In the unmistakable frottage technique, which opened up entirely new artistic horizons for Ernst’s visual universe from 1925 onwards

- Impressive exhibition history

- A humorous exploration of his alter ego and fantasy figure Loplop



Performance Loplop

Within the infinitely layered pictorial and intellectual universe of Max Ernst, the figure of Loplop represents a recurring constant. This artistic persona first appeared in 1929 as a commentator in Ernst’s first Surrealist collage novel.

“After I had completed my novel La femme 100 têtes in 1930 with perseverance and method, I was visited almost daily by Loplop, the Superior Bird, a private phantom of extraordinary loyalty. He was deeply attached to me.”

(Max Ernst, quoted in Werner Spies, Loplop – Die Selbstdarstellung des Künstlers, Munich, 1982, p. 9)

The artist clearly identified with this imaginary being, whose form oscillates between bird-like and anthropomorphic features. Between 1930 and 1932, Max Ernst placed his “private phantom” at the centre of a series of smaller drawings incorporating frottage and larger-scale collage drawings in which Loplop presents works of art. In a certain sense, these are self-portraits of the artist, introducing his own creations to the viewer.

The titles of most of these works remain linguistically open-ended: only occasionally does the phrase Loplop présente (“Loplop presents”) specify an object, indicating what the Superior Bird is displaying—for example, Loplop présente la Marseillaise or Loplop présente une fleur. Most titles, however, leave unnamed what—or whom—the physically present fantasy figure of Loplop is presenting.



What Loplop Presents

In the present sheet, Max Ernst depicts the anthropomorphic personification of Loplop frontally, with facial features rendered in an unusually elaborate manner. The head—as well as the largely concealed body—is constructed linearly from geometric elements.

The circular mouth appears open as if calling out, while small black rectangles serve as eyes flanking the angular, symmetrical nose. A flat hat sits slightly askew. Its curved segments, executed in frottage, enrich the otherwise strict linearity, as do the internal modelling of the nose and the volumetric form on the right side of the head, likewise rendered in the same technique.

The figure’s hands remain invisible. Loplop appears with striking presence, occupying almost the entire format of the sheet, which lacks both ground line and horizon. His body, however, is largely obscured by a horizontally oriented rectangular composition executed in frottage.

The large pear-shaped form and the fan-like, fish-like elements at the centre most readily suggest a still life. Yet Max Ernst’s universe is inexhaustible and continually invites the viewer to supplement visible reality with imagination of their own.

The present sheet, which boasts an impressive exhibition history, belonged from 1972 onward to the collector Ernst O. E. Fischer in Krefeld. Fischer was a distinguished expert on Max Ernst’s graphic works and illustrated books. His collection in these areas now forms part of the holdings of the Getty Research Institute Research Library in Los Angeles.



The Artist’s Delight in a New Technique

Since 1922, the Rhineland cosmopolitan Max Ernst had made Paris the centre of his life. After exceedingly difficult beginnings, the artist—having found a new intellectual home among the Surrealists—experienced several positive developments in 1925. A contract with the collector Jacques Viot secured him a regular income, while artistically he discovered and developed the technique of frottage, the rubbing of textured surfaces.

This process opened entirely new dimensions within Max Ernst’s pictorial cosmos.

The collage technique he had previously employed consumed its source material; its formal vocabulary was ultimately limited. By contrast, forms generated through frottage could be reused endlessly, recombined, and transformed.

The fish-like fan form at the centre of the work presented by Loplop in the present sheet, for example, reappears in another Loplop présente composition (Werner Spies, ed., Max Ernst – Oeuvre Catalogue, cat. raisonné no. 1850), as well as in the frontispiece of a book published in 1937 (ibid., no. 2294), and can ultimately be traced back to a printing plate created by Max Ernst in 1922 (ibid., no. 484).

In 1925, Ernst employed his discovery of frottage to produce thirty-four large-format sheets, which he published the following year under the title Histoire naturelle (fig. 1). This portfolio marked an important turning point within his oeuvre and greatly expanded the creative possibilities of Surrealist expression.

Created five years later, the present Loplop sheet conveys the artist’s continuing delight in—and pride in—both his alter ego Loplop and his newly discovered expressive power and visual language.

The curtain rises on new worlds of imagination.

Alexandra Bresges-Jung





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#Max Ernst #Rhenish Expressionism #Dadaism #Surrealism #France #Modern Art #1930s #Figure / Figures #Works on paper #Modern Art.







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