Until October 8, the Hôtel de Caumont in Aix-en-Provence is staging an exhibition entitled Max Ernst. Magical worlds, liberated worlds. This is an opportunity to review the acquisition of a painting by Max Ernst, L'Angoisse du Juif (1940) by the Musée du Camp des Miles at our Impressionist & Modern Art sale on April 20.

In May 1940, denounced by a French deaf-mute who accused him of sending signals to the enemy (even though the German army was more than a thousand kilometers away), Max Ernst was taken to Camp des Milles, near Aix-en-Provence, a former tile factory converted into an internment camp for Third Reich nationals.

Alongside artist Hans Bellmer, his dormitory companion, he produced a number of small-format works. These were often desolate landscapes that he populated with tragic figures, as in this painting in a palette of cold tones, featuring a figure in profile taking refuge in the crater of a volcano.

The Musée du Camp des Milles will help to preserve and pass on the memory of this historic work. Reduced in size, it is monumental in its treatment and in its foreshadowing of the tragedy to come for the Jews of Europe.

Your privileged contact in Aix-en-Provence :
Adrien Lacroix
+33 6 69 33 85
lacroix@aguttes.com