Press Release
For Press Inquiries Only:
Steve Konick
(202) 842-6598
s-konick@nga.gov
Chief Press Officer
Deborah Ziska
ds-ziska@nga.gov
(202) 842-6353
Release Date: February 21, 2008
Max Ernst
Les malheurs des immortels, 1922
National Gallery of Art Library, Washington
David K. E. Bruce Fund
Washington, DC–The mysterious, species-bending creatures invented by German surrealist Max Ernst (1891–1976) during the 1920s and 1930s will be highlighted in the focus exhibition Max Ernst: Illustrated Books, on view at the National Gallery of Art from March 2 through September 6, 2008, in the West Building, Ground Floor, Gallery G21. Drawn from the Gallery’s rare book collection, the 19 works include pages from Ernst’s collage novels La Femme 100 têtes (1929), Rêve d’une petite fille qui voulut entrer au Carmel (1930), and Une Semaine de bonté (1934).
Ernst’s works on display were made from separate images which he combined to form imaginative and ambiguous narratives. The prints run the gamut from supernatural and whimsical to sinister and dramatic. Many of Ernst’s collages reference childhood experiences and Freudian psychoanalysis and challenge the established rules of Western academic art.
The exhibition will also feature works in Histoire naturelle (1926) that were created by rubbing a pencil over different textures and surfaces in order to produce surprising plant and animal-like forms. Ernst was fond of this technique, called frottage. Some of Ernst’s collaborations with other writers and artists such as Jean Arp, Leonora Carrington, and Paul Éluard are also on view.
Exhibition Curators
The curators are Neal Turtell, executive librarian, National Gallery of Art, and Jennie King, doctoral candidate in the department of art and archaeology, Princeton University.
Library and Rare Books Collections
The National Gallery of Art library contains more than 350,000 books and periodicals, including more than 8,000 volumes in the rare book collection, with an emphasis on Western art from the Middle Ages to the present. Founded in 1941 when the West Building opened to the public, the library moved to the East Building in 1979. The photographic archives and slide library contain more than 11 million black-and-white prints and 300,000 slides of painting, sculpture, architecture, and the decorative arts. Access to the library is by appointment only. Call (202) 842-6511 for more information.
General Information
The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden are at all times
free to the public. They are located on the National Mall between 3rd
and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, and are open Monday through
Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00
p.m. The Gallery is closed on December 25 and January 1. For information
call (202) 737-4215 or the Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD)
at (202) 842-6176, or visit the Gallery's Web site at www.nga.gov.
Visitors will be asked to present all carried items for inspection upon
entering the East and West Buildings. Checkrooms are free of charge and
located at each entrance. Luggage and other oversized bags must be presented
at the 4th Street entrances to the East or West Building to permit x-ray
screening and must be deposited in the checkrooms at those entrances.
For the safety of visitors and the works of art, nothing may be carried
into the Gallery on a visitor's back. Any bag or other items that cannot
be carried reasonably and safely in some other manner must be left in
the checkrooms. Items larger than 17 x 26 inches cannot be accepted by
the Gallery or its checkrooms.
For additional press information please call or send inquiries to:
Press Office
National Gallery of Art
2000B South Club Drive
Landover, MD 20785
phone: (202) 842-6353 e-mail: pressinfo@nga.gov
Deborah Ziska
Chief of Press and Public Information
(202) 842-6353
ds-ziska@nga.gov
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National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC