Back to All Events

Max Ernst @ Transamerica Pyramid Center


  • Transamerica Pyramid Center 600 Montgomery Street San Francisco, CA, 94111 United States (map)

Editor’s Pick

“Crafted by Ernst in 1938 during his time living with his then lover, Leonora Carrington in the south of France, these sculptures strolled out of the illicit couple’s surrealist hideaway (forty-six-year-old Ernst having left his wife for the 20-year-old Carrington). Born in that romantic summer domesticity, these works frolic happily under the trees in this pocket forest. Don’t miss the sculpture tucked away inside TransAmerica architect William Pereira's pyramid, suspected to have been made collaboratively with Carrington. In this serene pseudo-nature reprieve, Ernst’s and Carrington's ill-fated fairy tale lives on. 

Another bridge beyond, the surrealist wave crests into Georgian artist Andro Eradze’s dreamy, fabulist animism at the Berkeley Art Museum. His trilogy of films, recently debuted at BAMPFA’s Matrix Gallery and curated by BAMPFA chief curator Margot Norton, invites a recumbent viewing, with pleather cushions scattered on the gallery floor below a 10ish-foot-wide screen.”

- Janie Perez-Radler

About the Exhibition

This suite of twelve bronze sculptures by Max Ernst (Brühl, Germany,1891 — Paris, France, 1976) offers a rare glimpse into one of the mostimportant and creatively charged periods of this visionary artist’s life.Originally conceived in 1938 — 39 for the rural home in the south ofFrance he shared with his partner, the celebrated artist LeonoraCarrington, these sculptures blur the distinction between art andenvironment, function and fantasy, domestic space and dreamscape. Setamidst Transamerica Redwood Park, these bronze casts of thosesculptures — once perched above entryways and windows, nestled inunexpected corners, embedded into the very walls of their home —playfully reinterpret their original positioning and purpose. Today, theseworks stand as enduring relics of a brief yet consequential era of Ernst’spractice and life, exemplifying the provocative, witty and defiant spiritthat cemented him as a towering force of the surrealist movement, andone of the most significant figures in 20th-century art.Courtesy of Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco © 2025 Artists RightsSociety (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris.

Previous
Previous
July 19

The Sky Below @ Marin MoCA

Next
Next
July 24

Julia Chiang: Run Like the Rain @ Jessica Silverman