Max Ernst

Max Ernst (1891–1976) was a German-born painter, sculptor, and printmaker who became one of the founding figures of Dada in Cologne before helping shape Surrealism in Paris. Self-taught as an artist, he treated painting as a form of invention: in the 1920s he devised frottage, taking pencil rubbings from wood grain and other textured surfaces, and grattage, scraping wet paint across canvas to let underlying textures emerge, later also working with decalcomania. Birds recur throughout his imagery, embodied in his invented alter ego Loplop.