“Painting for me is not a decorative divertissement, nor a plastic invention of a perceived reality; painting must, each time, be an invention, a discovery, a revelation.” An exhibition dedicated to German naturalised-French artist Max Ernst is opening at Palazzo Reale in Milan, from 4 October 2022 to 26 February 2023. Throughout his life Surrealist painter Ernst encountered many figures, such as André Breton, Paul Éluard, Giorgio De Chirico, Salvador Dalì, and Luis Buñuel, who played a key role in his life and production, but his life was truly changed by the two women he married: Peggy Guggenheim and Dorothea Tanning. The latter is the American painter and poet who Ernst repetitively referenced in his works, works which became a space for the couple’s unique and enduring dialogue.

The exhibition brings together over 400 pieces, many on loan from the Guggenheim collection, through which visitors will step into an oneiric, almost impenetrable, cryptic world, where symbolism is the cornerstone and mystery, paired with a captivating use of colour, the main theme.