Self-Constructed Little Machine

1919/20

Max Ernst
American and French, born Germany, 1891-1976

Status: On View, Gallery 397
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Max Ernst
Title: Self-Constructed Little Machine
Place: United States (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1919–1920
Medium: Graphite with pen and black ink on tan wove paper
Inscriptions: Signed, lower right: "dadamax ernst"; inscribed, lower left: "SELBSTKONSTRUIERTES MASCHINCHEN IN DIESEM VERRÜHRT ER/MEERSALAT LEITARTIKEL LEIDTRAGENDE UND EISENSAMEN/IN ZYLINDERN AUS BESTEM MUTTERKORN SODAß VORNE DIE/ENTWICKELUNG UND RÜCKWÄRTS DIE ANATOMIE ZU SEHEN IST/DER PREIS STELLT SICH DANN UM 4 MARK HÖHER" (self-constructed little machine in which he mixes sea salad, editorial mourner and iron sperm into cylinders of the best ergot so that the development can be seen in front and the anatomy in back the price is then about 4 marks higher); inscribed, lower center: "PETITE MACHINE CONSTRUITE PAR LUI-MÊME/IL Y MÉLANGE LA SALADE DE MER LA SPERME/DE FER LE PÉRISPERME AMER DE L'UNE CÔTÉ/NOUS VOYONS L'ÉVOLUTION DE L'AUTRE L'ANA-/TOMIE ÇA COUTE 2 SOUS PLUS CHER" (a little machine constructed by himself in which he mixes sea salad iron sperm bitter perisperm on one side we see the evolution on the other the anatomy it costs 2 cents more)
Dimensions: 46.6 × 31.5 cm (18 3/8 × 12 7/16 in.)
Credit Line: Lindy and Edwin Bergman Collection
Reference Number: 2018.315
Copyright: © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

William S. Rubin, Dada and Surrealist Art (New York, 1968), fig. 83 and p. 96.
Dore Ashton, “The End and the Beginning of an Age,” Arts Magazine 43:3 (Dec. 1968-Jan. 1969), p. 46 (ill.).
Uwe M. Schneede, Max Ernst, translated by R.W. Last (New York, 1973), fig. 35.
Ernst Katalog, vol. 2 (1975), pp. xi, 161, no. 318 (ill.).
Hal Foster, “Armor fou,” October 56 (Spring 1991), pp. 73-74 (ill.), 75, 77; reprinted in Stephen Melville and Bill Readings (editors), Vision and Textuality (Durham, North Carolina, 1995), pl. 64, pp. 221-23.
Museum Ludwig, Max Ernst: Das Rendezvous der Freunde, exh. cat. (Cologne, 1991), p. 74.
Ernst Collages 1991 (1974), p. 47.
Hal Foster, Compulsive Beauty (Boston, 1993), pp. 153-54 (ill.).
Dawn Ades, with Margherita Andreotti and Adam Jolles, Surrealist Art: The Lindy and Edwin Bergman Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1997), pp. 120–21, cat. 61 (color ill.).

Paris, Au Sans Pareil, “Exposition Dada Max Ernst,” 1921, cat. 45, as “Petite Machine.”
Düsseldorf Kunsthalle, “Dada: Dokumente einer Bewegung,” 1958, cat. 286; also Frankfurt.
Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, “Dada,” 1958-1959, cat. 279.
London, Tate Gallery, “Max Ernst,” 1961, cat. 10 (ill.).
New York, Museum of Modern Art, “Max Ernst,” 1961, cat. 178; also Chicago.
Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, “Fantastic Drawings,” 1967–1968, no cat.
New York, Museum of Modern Art, “The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age,” 1968-1969, p. 121 (ill.); also Houston and San Francisco.
New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, “Max Ernst: A Retrospective,” 1975, p. 25 (ill.), cat. 25.
Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, “Max Ernst,” 1975, cat. 29 (ill.).
London, Hayward Gallery, “Dada and Surrealism Reviewed,” 1978, cat. 5.12 (ill.), as “Small Machine Made by Himself.”
Boston, Institute of Contemporary Art, “Dada: Berlin, Cologne, Hannover,” 1980-1981, n.p.; also Fort Worth.
Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, “Dada and Surrealism in Chicago Collections,” 1984–1985, p. 142 (ill.) and p. 47.
New York, Museum of Modern Art, “Max Ernst: Dada and the Dawn of Surrealism,” 1993, cat. 37, pl. 43, pp. 72, 81, 91; shown only in Chicago.

Robert Pudlich, Düsseldorf. Sold by Hanover Gallery, London, to Lindy and Edwin Bergman, Chicago, 1959; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2018.

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