Maximiliana: Max Ernst from the Collection of Peter Schamoni
Phillips, London
14 and 15 October 2021
MAX ERNST
Pyramid Lake, 1946
Estimate: £550,000-750,000
Photo courtesy of Phillips
Phillips announces ‘Maximiliana: Max Ernst from the Collection of Peter Schamoni’. Through his close friendship with Max Ernst, renowned film director and screenwriter Peter Schamoni assembled an exceptional collection that serves as a lasting memento of one of the most significant artists of the 20th century. Over 80 works of art will be offered, starting with the 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day and Evening sales in London on 14 and 15 October, followed by New York in November. The sale of the collection will culminate in December with a dedicated online-only sale of works on paper, editions, photographs and ephemera.
Cheyenne Westphal, Global Chairwoman, Phillips, said, “The relationship between Peter Schamoni and Max Ernst, an artist who welcomed him into his home, studio and life for close to two decades, is at the heart of this esteemed collection. Having been on loan to the Max Ernst Museum in Brühl, the pedigree and art-historical significance of the works here is exceptional, but it is the deeply personal dimension of the collection which truly sets it apart. We are incredibly honoured and excited to present this to a global audience across our sales this season.”
Tobias Sirtl, 20th Century & Contemporary Art Specialist, Germany, said, “It is such a rare and magnificent opportunity to offer a collection which truly spans the entire oeuvre of an artist, from the early years to the late period. It represents a great depth of collecting, with works of the highest quality and carrying exceptional provenance.”
Max Ernst and Peter Schamoni
Photograph by Viktor Schamoni
Courtesy of Phillips
A Tale of Two Artists
Peter Schamoni was born in Berlin in 1934 as the son of the filmmaker Peter Schamoni and the actress and screenwriter Maria Vormann. Peter Schamoni first met Max Ernst in the 1960s, a young filmmaker travelling to the French Touraine to start work on his first documentary about the artist that had so captivated him. This marked the start of a long friendship and various artistic collaborations. Peter Schamoni’s films explored and excavated Max Ernst’s unique visual language, drawing on key themes and motifs that preoccupied the artist throughout his career, and which are well represented across the present collection.
Highlights from the 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, London
Spanning the early 1920s to the 1970s, the collection highlights Max Ernst’s relentlessly experimental approach to material and technique, bringing together paintings, drawings, sculpture, collage, prints, and his innovative frottages.
A leading highlight of the sale, Pyramid Lake is a record of both Max Ernst’s time in Sedona, Arizona, and of the filmmaker’s later retracing of his footsteps. After the war, Max Ernst settled in Sedona with Surrealist artist Dorothea Tanning in 1946, the same year that Pyramid Lake was completed. The home they built together was visited by avant-garde luminaries Lee Miller, Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, among others. Schamoni’s 1991 feature-length documentary Max Ernst: Mein Vagabundieren – Meine Unruhe records this period, incorporating photographic images of the bare timber bones of their house erected against the surreal emptiness of the landscape. Hovering between dream and reality, the highly textured surface of Pyramid Lake is the result of Max Ernst’s experimentation with materials and process, a breath-taking example of his celebrated frottage works and decalcomania techniques.
MAX ERNST
Matin et soir, 1930
Estimate: £200,000-300,000
Photo courtesy of Phillips
Matin et soir resided in Max Ernst’s personal collection for four decades, until it was acquired by Schamoni. From his early Dada days, Max Ernst had demonstrated an interest in scientific and technical instruments. Executed in 1930, Matin et soir pushes this into new territory with the playful inclusion of a pyrometric watch, a conical tool used to ensure consistency in a kiln’s temperature. The pyrometric watch stands as a visual metaphor for the passage of morning into night referenced in the work’s title. A key theme running through Max Ernst’s oeuvre and fundamental to Surrealism, Matin et soir uses a characteristic quick-wittedness to explore ideas around mutability and metamorphosis, condensed in the figure of his Bird-Familiar, Loplop. The present work has been widely exhibited and was included in the major 1979 Max Ernst retrospective in Munich.
Max Ernst had a long-standing fascination for the categorisations of natural history, and scientific motifs are threaded through the collection. Alongside a sustained interest in the instruments and tools of scientific inquiry that unities the works presented here, we also find more specific references to the practices of cartography in Euklid, 1950 (estimate: £200,000-300,000), and in Homme (Spezialpreis für die Kurzfilmtage in Oberhausen), 1960 (estimate: £65,000-85,000).
Highlights from the 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, New York
MAX ERNST
Ohne Titel (les hommes ne le sauront jamais), circa 1921
Estimate: $600,000-800,000
Photo courtesy of Phillips
MAX ERNST
Kachina, le chien de Peggy Guggenheim, circa 1942
Estimate: $280,000-350,000
Photo courtesy of Phillips
London Auctions
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale
Auction: 15 October 2021
Auction viewing: 6-15 October
Location: 30 Berkeley Square, London
Click here for more information:
20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale
Auction: 14 October 2021
Auction viewing: 6-14 October
Location: 30 Berkeley Square, London
Click here for more information:
PHILLIPS LONDON
30 Berkeley Square, London W1J 6EX
