One of the leading Surrealists, Max Ernst could justly be described as the greatest investigator of the human consciousness. He created fantastical, apparently inconceivable images that hark back to our inner world, to the childish reminiscences that feed the subconscious.

This exhibition presents some twenty paintings and works on paper from the 1920s, Ernst’s first French period. All come from private collections and one, in particular, has its roots in the collection of noted Paris dealer Aram Mouradian. The early 1920s were an important period that marked the transition from Dada to Surrealism not only for Ernst but in European art as a whole. In the first half of the decade Ernst produced his so-called proto-Surrealist pictures, in which the artist moved away from avant-garde experimentation towards a more poetic and integral artistic image, starting to experiment with the painting technique itself. Never before shown in Russia, these works represent an important stage in the development of Ernst’s output.