Max Ernst

Adam and Eve Expelled from the Garden of Eden (Adam et Eve chassés du Paradis)

1946–47

Gouache on cardstock

Not on view

In this microscopic painting, Ernst has, paradoxically, created a vast landscape. Despite the title, no figures of Adam and Eve can be found within the reticulated textures of the paint. Ernst was, perhaps, making ironic reference to a story that looms large in the history of art. He was probably also alluding to the move that he and his wife, artist Dorothea Tanning, had recently made from New York to the sandstone desert of Sedona, Arizona. The painting is one of several tiny works Ernst called “Microbes” and made, in part, because they could be easily transported.

Gallery label from

Max Ernst: Beyond Painting, September 23, 2017-January 1, 2018.

Medium Gouache on cardstock
Dimensions 1/2" x 1 3/8" (1.4 x 3.6 cm)
Credit Gift of Pierre Matisse in memory of Patricia Kane Matisse
Object number 464.1978
Department Drawings and Prints

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Max Ernst

Max Ernst

French and American, born Germany. 1891–1976 234 works online

A 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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