Collages Communicants: Visual Representation in the Collage-Albums of Max Ernst and Valentine Penrose

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Notes

Notes

1  In Surrealist Painters and Poets (513), ed. Mary Ann Caws.

2  Along with Max Ernst, Jean Arp, Hans Bellmer, Bona, André Breton, Joseph Cornell, Aube Elléoët, Paul Eluard, Georges Hugnet, Man Ray, Georges Malkine, Joan Miro, André Masson, Roland Penrose, Jacques Prévert, Toyen and Styrsky tried their hand at collage as well. In his 1923 essay, “Max Ernst peintre des illusions,” Aragon distinguishes Ernst's collages from the earlier cubist papiers-collés crafted by Picasso and Braque and claims that Ernst's work shifts from the formal function of the latter to a process of visual poetic expression (Adamowicz 4).

3  Forward to La Femme 100 têtes, trans. Dorothea Tanning.

4  Several recent studies offer new perspectives on partnerships and the participation of women in the surrealist movement. Mary Ann Caws’ Surrealism and Women (1991), Renée Riese Hubert's Magnifying Mirrors (1994), and La Femme s’entête (1998) edited by Georgiana Colvile and Kate Conley (whose title is a riposte to Max Ernst's collage album title, La Femme 100 têtes/The Hundred Headless Woman), highlight the liberating aspects of the surrealist movement for women and the creative opportunities it made available to them. In two incisive studies on Valentine's work, Riese Hubert analyzes “a woman's struggle for alterity within the bounds of surrealism” (Magnifying Mirrors 111).

5  Valentine née Boué and Roland Penrose had known Max Ernst for eight years when Roland enthusiastically financed Ernst's collage novel Une Semaine de Bonté (1934). Valentine was “deeply offended” (Tony Penrose, The Friendly Surrealist 65) by the overtly violent and misogynous content. In addition, their relationship had already been strained by “Valentine's love for Marie-Berthe Ernst … In the face of the complicated friendship of their husbands, the two women formed a strong alliance.” (Tony Penrose 63).

6  “Le terme d’espace recouvre des notions bien différentes: il existe pour chacun un espace matériel et un espace mental. Ces deux catégories ont en commun ce point de pouvoir être envahies: l’une parla violence, l’autre par l’indiscrétion. Dans notre monde, l’espace matériel est lié à différentes fonctions: l’une est la domination et la servitude … une autre est la hiérarchie. … Cependant, à partir du moment où la femme conçoit l’espace, non plus selon sa fonction séparatrice, mais comme une fonction de rapprochement, elle devient aussitôt voyageuse intrépide et au besoin topographe, comme Alexandra David Neel, capable de se diriger sans carte dans les pistes de l’Himalaya” (Hermann 137 & 153). (Penrose was familiar with David Neel and in 1939 she herself made a trip alone to the Himalayas where she lived for several months.)

7  It is possible that Penrose began to experiment with collage in the 1920s and 30s when Max Ernst was a regular presence in her life (courtesy of Tony Penrose). The only extant collage prior to the 1942 series is a wedding gift to Roland entitled “A mon époux” (1925) (Penrose, Home of the Surrealists).