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1956 Jimmy Ernst Born: Cologne, Germany 1920 Died: New York, New York 1984 oil on canvas 36 x 47 7/8 in. (91.4 x 121.5 cm.) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation 1986.6.28 Not currently on view
“. . . that is what I really think of painting---having a conversation with the surface, and at a certain point it begins to talk back.” Ernst, June 1975, interview by Louise Svendson, quoted in Kuspit, Jimmy Ernst, Art and Life, 2000
Jimmy Ernst used a Japanese sword striper paintbrush to create the delicate arrangement of blue and white lines in the center of this painting, which contrasts with the dark, heavy shapes on either side. The image conjures a dreamlike world of structures spinning and whirring like fantastic wind machines. Ernst used shades of blue with only occasional touches of red to emphasize the different textures of paint, from the scumbled mass on the left to the dense, overlapping shapes on the right.
For more information about this work visit the Luce Foundation Center.
Keywords
Abstract - geometric
painting
paint - oil
fabric - canvas
About Jimmy Ernst
Born: Cologne, Germany 1920 Died: New York, New York 1984
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