Before Max Ernst helped shape Surrealism, he learned how to create artistic fires in Bonn: The exhibition "Visions of Modernism - August Macke and Max Ernst" at the Museum August Macke Haus Bonn presents Max Ernst as a young artist from the environment of Rhenish Expressionism; not as the already canonized Surrealist. The occasion is the 50th anniversary of the Rhineland-born artist's death in April 2026. The exhibition reports on the close connection to August Macke, in whose Bonn residence Ernst regularly frequented. An important modernist network was formed here.
With around 80 works - including paintings, prints, sculptures, photographs and contemporary documents - the exhibition shows how strongly Macke and Ernst were connected through humor, a love of art and a view of their time, before the First World War brutally tore their lives apart.
Particularly exciting for art fans: "Visions of Modernism" is the first public presentation of an early oil painting by Max Ernst, which was previously considered "whereabouts unknown" in the catalog raisonné. The show also pays tribute to two women, Luise Straus-Ernst and Elisabeth Erdmann-Macke, without whom the art history of the two artists would remain incomplete.
