Ernst spent the summer of 1934 with the sculptor Alberto Giacometti in the Swiss village of Maloja. There, he carved and painted a group of oval river stones. Upon his return to Paris, Ernst continued to pursue his interest in sculpture, turning to plaster as his material of choice. The anatomical punning and oblique erotic allusion manifest in Lunar Asparagus typify Ernst’s work in three dimensions. The Museum acquired the original plaster version in 1937; it was later cast in bronze, at the artist’s request, and painted white to emulate plaster.
Max Ernst: Beyond Painting, September 23, 2017-January 1, 2018.
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Max Ernst
French and American, born Germany. 1891–1976 234 works onlineA key member of first Dada and then Surrealism in Europe in the 1910s and 1920s, Max Ernst used a variety of mediums—painting, collage, printmaking, sculpture, and various unconventional drawing methods—to give visual form to both personal memory and collective myth.
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