About this artwork
Like Constantin Brâncusi, Max Ernst was fascinated with birds, and among his earliest works incorporating this motif are some two dozen small, unconventional pictures made around 1925. One of these works was incorporated as a picture within a picture in Human Figure with Two Birds, a painting that set the stage for an extraordinary series of works that Ernst began in 1930, which featured a large, fantastic bird figure that the artist identified as Loplop. In these works, Loplop, the artist’s “private phantom attached to my person,” generally holds up a picture for presentation. Here the rudimentary figure outlined in white is an early manifestation of Loplop, Ernst’s playful, surreal concept of self-portraiture by proxy.
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Modern Art
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Artist
- Max Ernst
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Title
- Human Figure with Two Birds
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Place
- United States (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- 1925–1929
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Medium
- Oil on emery paper, mounted on scrap-wood panel covered with industrial-grade black paper
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Dimensions
- 116.4 × 39.4 cm (45 7/8 × 15 1/2 in.)
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Credit Line
- Through prior gift of the Albert Kunstadter Family Foundation
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Reference Number
- 1989.386
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Copyright
- © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Extended information about this artwork
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