Fruits

Prints and Drawings

1925

Max Ernst
German, 1891–1976

This large and impressive sheet is an example of frottage, a method of laying paper on top of a textured surface and rubbing over it with pencil, which Max Ernst introduced to avant-garde artmaking in 1925. The border of Fruits, with its softly rendered rubbings from wood grain, show the classic signs of frottage, while the central still life, turned on its axis and appearing to float in space, has a compositional clarity that is difficult to achieve with this method.

Ernst used frottage to expand the possibilities of art by surrendering some control when creating a design. In the process of subverting classic principles of drawing, however, he ironically created a work of exceptional graphic sensibility, balance, and skill.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Max Ernst
Title: Fruits
Place: Germany (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.: 1925
Medium: Black colored pencil or crayon frottage on cream wove paper
Inscriptions: Signed, lower right: “Max Ernst”
Dimensions: 65 × 49.8 cm (25 5/8 × 19 5/8 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Richard and Mary L. Gray
Reference Number: 2019.846

Werner Spies, Sigrid Metken, and Günter Metken, Max Ernst: Oeuvre-Katalog (DuMont Schauberg, 1976), vol. 3, Werke 1925–1929, p. 68, no. 922 (ill. upside down).

Paris, Galerie Vignon, Collection de peinture de nos jours appartenant à Serge Lifar, 1929, cat. 30.
Paris, Musée Jacquemart-André, La passion du dessin: Collection Jan et Marie Anne Krugier-Poniatowski, 2002, pp. 364–67, cat. 170 (color ill., p. 365).
Vienna, Albertina Museum, Goya bis Picasso: Meisterwerke der Sammlung Jan Krugier und Marie Anne Krugier-Poniatowski, 2005, pp. 326, cat. 141; 327 (color ill.).
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Pure Drawing: Seven Centuries of Art from the Gray Collection”, January 25 - May 10, 2020, pp. 86-87, 123 fig. 31.2, cat. 31, p. 143, GC 115.

Serge Diaghilev (1872–1929), Paris, c. 1926; given to Serge Lifar (1905–1986), Paris and Lausanne, 1929 [according to New York 2013 auc. cat. and Paris 1926 exh. cat.]. Sold, Etude Tajan, Monaco, Aug. 2, 2000, lot 23, to Jan Krugier (1928–2008), Geneva; sold, Christie’s, New York, Nov. 5, 2013, lot 189, to the Gray Collection Trust, Chicago; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2019.

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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.

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