Surréalisme - la machine de vos rêves. (Original Collage)
Ernst, Max and Georges Hugnet
(Paris). 6 avril 1934
A superb original collaborative Surrealist double-sided collage signed by Max Ernst and Georges Hugnet - two of the most remarkable, original and productive practitioners of the technique - and presented to Noel Armand.
The collage takes as its basis (recto) a nineteenth-century sepia-toned photograph of a group of men, members of a gymnasium, all wearing dark trousers, boots, white undershirts and braces, posing before a building. Dumbbells and other items of equipment from the gymnasium scattered about serve as the backdrop and props for the 15 figures depicted, each of whom has had a letter, group of letters - upper or lowercase and in various different types - or manicule pasted over their faces to form the title: 'Surréalisme - la machine de vos rêves'. This is an example of an 'analytic' collage, i.e. it is composed of a background image to which additional elements have been added. That the text forms an aphorism that is itself a definition of Surrealism is self-evident.
The verso too features collage with images of an empty safe, a mattress, a canopy and other household furnishing in black on magenta or turquoise paper with the individual letters - again in upper or lowercase and in various types - to form the word 'Amitiés'. At upper right is the presentation in magenta ink: 'à Noel Armand / GEORGES HUGNET / 6 Avril 34'; a series of magenta dashes link the presentation and the leters of 'Amitiés' and Max Ernst's signature is at lower right. This is an example of a 'synthetic' collage, i.e. a composition of disparate elements which, in combination, create a new, unified whole.
'Collage is the impoverished relation. For a long time to come its worth will continue to be denied. It passes for being reproducible at will. EVeryone thinks himself capable of creating it. And if painters, through steady will, are able to perpetuate and to exacerbate this ill repute, perhaps they will manage to render that which is known ass foolishness into the expression of reality and makke their works such that they will no longer have any value, absolutely none aat all, for those people who thought they had the right to decorate their walls wih human thought, with living thought.' (Louis Aragon, from 'La Peinture au Défi').
Max Ernst began experiments with collage in the early 1920s and produced a number of books, his collage novels, illustrated with collages beginning with 'Repetitions' and 'Les Malheurs des Immortels' in 1922 and including his important trilogy 'La Femme 100 Têtes' (1929), 'Rêve d'une Fille Qui Voulut Entrer au Carmel' (1930) and 'Une Semaine de Bonté' (1934). Hugnet too experimented throughout his life (beginning in the 1930s) with the collage and photomontage and produced a number of works illustrated with collages ('La Septième Face du De', 'Huit Jours à Trébaumec' and others). Although the Surrealists created 'cadavre exquis' from collage elements with multiple contributors creating a collaborative image, individual collages such as this are rare. Ernst did create collages with others, including Eluard and Hans Bellmer,This collage, signed as it is by both Max Ernst and Georges Hugnet, represents a remarkable Surrealist collaboration and an excellent visual and semantic definition of Surrealism itself.
' ... the two majordomos of this highly important area of Surrealist activity are Max Ernst (as great [sic] artist enhanced with extraordinary poetic vision) and the lesser known but distinguished Surrealist poet, with equally superior skills in the world of collage, Georges Hugnet ... Concerning Max Ernst, his amazing output as a genius of the art of the collage speaks supremely for itself. Besides his wonderful, endlessly imaginitive treasure trove of single works, he also bestowed upon us the totally magical legacy of his 'collage-novels' ... Georges Hugnet is another sort of collagist entirely. He, with a naughty (but very focused) bent on the erotoc side of life, invented in the 1930s the concept of the poème-collage ... a collage merging cutout words (of every sort and size), interspersed with images - something that no prior artist had ever understaken.' (Timothy Baum).
[see Louis Aragon's 'La Peinture au Défi', Paris, 1930, translated from the French by John Goodman and Molly Stevens; see'Surrealism: Two Private Eyes', Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1999 (vol. 2, 'Collage', pp. 640 - 719); see 'The Surrealist Collage - Where Dreams and Reality Meet', New York, 2025, pg. 11].
The collage takes as its basis (recto) a nineteenth-century sepia-toned photograph of a group of men, members of a gymnasium, all wearing dark trousers, boots, white undershirts and braces, posing before a building. Dumbbells and other items of equipment from the gymnasium scattered about serve as the backdrop and props for the 15 figures depicted, each of whom has had a letter, group of letters - upper or lowercase and in various different types - or manicule pasted over their faces to form the title: 'Surréalisme - la machine de vos rêves'. This is an example of an 'analytic' collage, i.e. it is composed of a background image to which additional elements have been added. That the text forms an aphorism that is itself a definition of Surrealism is self-evident.
The verso too features collage with images of an empty safe, a mattress, a canopy and other household furnishing in black on magenta or turquoise paper with the individual letters - again in upper or lowercase and in various types - to form the word 'Amitiés'. At upper right is the presentation in magenta ink: 'à Noel Armand / GEORGES HUGNET / 6 Avril 34'; a series of magenta dashes link the presentation and the leters of 'Amitiés' and Max Ernst's signature is at lower right. This is an example of a 'synthetic' collage, i.e. a composition of disparate elements which, in combination, create a new, unified whole.
'Collage is the impoverished relation. For a long time to come its worth will continue to be denied. It passes for being reproducible at will. EVeryone thinks himself capable of creating it. And if painters, through steady will, are able to perpetuate and to exacerbate this ill repute, perhaps they will manage to render that which is known ass foolishness into the expression of reality and makke their works such that they will no longer have any value, absolutely none aat all, for those people who thought they had the right to decorate their walls wih human thought, with living thought.' (Louis Aragon, from 'La Peinture au Défi').
Max Ernst began experiments with collage in the early 1920s and produced a number of books, his collage novels, illustrated with collages beginning with 'Repetitions' and 'Les Malheurs des Immortels' in 1922 and including his important trilogy 'La Femme 100 Têtes' (1929), 'Rêve d'une Fille Qui Voulut Entrer au Carmel' (1930) and 'Une Semaine de Bonté' (1934). Hugnet too experimented throughout his life (beginning in the 1930s) with the collage and photomontage and produced a number of works illustrated with collages ('La Septième Face du De', 'Huit Jours à Trébaumec' and others). Although the Surrealists created 'cadavre exquis' from collage elements with multiple contributors creating a collaborative image, individual collages such as this are rare. Ernst did create collages with others, including Eluard and Hans Bellmer,This collage, signed as it is by both Max Ernst and Georges Hugnet, represents a remarkable Surrealist collaboration and an excellent visual and semantic definition of Surrealism itself.
' ... the two majordomos of this highly important area of Surrealist activity are Max Ernst (as great [sic] artist enhanced with extraordinary poetic vision) and the lesser known but distinguished Surrealist poet, with equally superior skills in the world of collage, Georges Hugnet ... Concerning Max Ernst, his amazing output as a genius of the art of the collage speaks supremely for itself. Besides his wonderful, endlessly imaginitive treasure trove of single works, he also bestowed upon us the totally magical legacy of his 'collage-novels' ... Georges Hugnet is another sort of collagist entirely. He, with a naughty (but very focused) bent on the erotoc side of life, invented in the 1930s the concept of the poème-collage ... a collage merging cutout words (of every sort and size), interspersed with images - something that no prior artist had ever understaken.' (Timothy Baum).
[see Louis Aragon's 'La Peinture au Défi', Paris, 1930, translated from the French by John Goodman and Molly Stevens; see'Surrealism: Two Private Eyes', Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1999 (vol. 2, 'Collage', pp. 640 - 719); see 'The Surrealist Collage - Where Dreams and Reality Meet', New York, 2025, pg. 11].
Postcard. (88 x 139 mm). Gelatine silver print in sepia on photograph postcard stock, printed postcard layout verso, the recto with thirteen applied sections of paper to form a collage, verso with 11 applied sections of paper and manuscript text in magenta ink (see below). Loose in original (?) folded sheet of glassine.
#48793
