Max Ernst
Earthquake, Late Afternoon
1947
Scroll
Max Ernst
Earthquake, Late Afternoon
1947
Physical Qualities
Oil on canvas, 10 1/4 × 18 1/4 in. (26 × 46.4 cm.)
Credit Line
Bequest of Saidie A. May
Object Number
1951.297
Ernst arrived in the United States in 1941 during World War II, having gained asylum through the help of Alfred Barr, director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and other American friends. He met and married the painter Dorothea Tanning in New York and together they moved to Sedona, Arizona, where they built a house and studio by hand. Ernst remained there for more than a decade and found the purity of the desert landscape paralleled his own spiritual vision. Free of urban constraints, he painted isolated vistas such as Earthquake, Late Afternoon, which capture the natural forces, enigmatic stillness, and intense colors of the locale.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by bequest, 1951; The Baltimore Museum of Art on extended loan, 1949-1951; Saidie A. May, by purchase 1949; from M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., New York
Guarding the Art
Sedona Surreal: Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning in the Southwestern United States
The Baltimore Museum of Art News, “Catalogue of the Saidie A. May Collection of Modern Paintings and Sculpture,” March, 1950, cat. 37, p. 14.
Inscribed: FACE: LRC, "Max Ernst 48"
