Max Ernst — Histoire naturelle — Jeanne Bucher Jaeger | Paris, Marais Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Ends in 3 months: September 21, 2024 → January 18, 2025

Max Ernst — Galerie Jeanne Bucher Jaeger On the occasion of the centenary of the birth of surrealism, the Jeanne Bucher Jaeger gallery envisions a display of Max Ernst's wo... 2 - Bien Critique

To celebrate 100 years of Surrealism, the Professional Committee of Art Galleries partners with the Centre Pompidou and the Association Atelier André Breton around the «Surrealism» exhibition, presented at the Centre Pompidou from September 4, 2024 to January 13, 2025.

As part of the Paris Surrealist event, the gallery is exhibiting Max Ernst’s HISTOIRE NATURELLE edition published in 1926 by Jeanne Bucher. It consists of 34 frottages and scratchings by Max Ernst, reproduced in phototypy, all signed by the artist except for 6 non-commercial copies, numbered a to f; the rest of the edition is divided into 20 copies on Imperial Japan paper numbered 1 to 20, 30 copies on Arches vellum numbered 21 to 50, and 250 copies on vellum numbered 51 to 300.

A graphic equivalent of automatic writing, frottage, created by applying a sheet of paper on different surfaces and then rubbing it with a pencil, is one of the artist’s most original contributions to the history of surrealism. The phototypy (also called collotype) used for these prints is a greasy ink printing process using bichromated gelatin and exposed on a glass plate. This process, the primary mode of postcard printing until the 1930s, allows for continuous tone rendering without screening.

This is one of the first albums from Jeanne Bucher Editions, which later continued with many surrealist artists and poets such as Max Ernst, Tristan Tzara, Georges Hugnet, Man Ray, Paul Eluard, Hans Bellmer, and Yves Tanguy, Jean Hugo and his Miroir Magique, published by Jeanne Bucher in 1927 and currently celebrated in the exhibition at the Musée Fabre in Montpellier. Max Ernst’s Histoire Naturelle was specifically presented at the Pierre Chareau shop between April 24 and May 15, 1926.