La femme chancelante - Kunstsammlung NRW / Online-Sammlung

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Information

Artist

Max Ernst

1891
Brühl, Deutschland

1976
Paris, Frankreich

Work data

Material/Technique

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

Image: 131 × 97.8 × 2.8 cm
Frame: 136.3 × 102.7 × 6.5 cm

Signature

Bez. u.r.: "max ernst 1923"

Accession Number

0175

Catalogue Raisonné

Spies/Metken 627

Acquisition year

1970

Provenance

Shortly after its creation in 1923, the painting “La femme chancelante” by Max Ernst entered the collection of Paul Eluard, who was a close friend of the artist at the time. In 1936, Ernst himself made the work available to the Museum of Modern Art in New York for an exhibition, so it can be assumed that it had become his property again by this time. For the years after 1936, however, there is no further evidence of the work’s whereabouts. At the beginning of the 1960s, it passed from the collection of Gordon Onslow-Ford to the collection of Joseph Slifka, from whom Siegfried Adler finally purchased it in 1970. The Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen purchased the painting “La femme chancelante” from Adler for its holdings that same year.

Between 2009 and 2012, several freelance provenance researchers examined the origins (provenance) of all works in the collection of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen as part of a comprehensive research project funded by the German Lost Art Foundation. The focus was on all works created before 1945. For the painting “La femme chancelante,” the ownership history during the National Socialist period (1933–1945) could not be fully clarified. For this reason, the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen commissioned a more in-depth investigation into the history of this work in 2025.

If you have any questions or information regarding this work, please contact us:
Dr. Vivien Trommer
Head of Collection
trommer@kunstsammlung.de

Credit line

Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf

Exhibitions

Max Ernst - Retrospektive zum 100. Geburtstag, 12.2.-20.4.1991, Tate Gallery, London
Max Ernst: Dada and the Dawn of Surrealism, 11.3.-1.5.1993, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Puppen Körper Automaten. Phantasmen der Moderne, 23.7.-31.10.1999, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf
Max Ernst. Die Retrospektive, 4.3.-29.5.1999, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin/Haus der Kunst, München
Unser 20. Jahrhundert - Meisterwerke von Picasso bis Beuys, 14.7.-28.10.2000, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf
La Révolution surréaliste/Surrealismus 1919-1944. Dalí, Max Ernst, Magritte, Miró, Picasso ..., 5.3.-23.6.2002, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
La Révolution surréaliste/Surrealismus 1919-1944. Dalí, Max Ernst, Magritte, Miró, Picasso ..., 19.7.-23.11.2002, K20 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf
Max Ernst: A Retrospective, 3.4.-9.7.2005, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Masterpieces of Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen / Meisterwerke der Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, 17.10.2008-30.5.2009, Nagoya City Art Museum, Bunkamura Museum of Art in Tokyo, Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art in Kobe
Die Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen zu Gast in Gottorf. Picasso, Klee, Beckmann, Matisse und weitere Künstler in Schloß Gottorf, 18.7.-24.10.2009, Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Stiftung Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseen, Schloß Gottorf, Schleswig
Gegen jede Vernunft. Surralismus Paris - Prag, 13.11.2009-13.2.2010, Wilhelm Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen
Silent Revolution - Eine neue Sammlungspräsentation, 26.2.-12.6.2010, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, K21 Ständehaus, Düsseldorf
Dalí, Magritte, Miró. Surrealismus in Paris, 1.10.2011-28.1.2012, Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel/Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brüssel, ab März 2012
Constable, Delacroix, Friedrich, Goya. Die Erschütterung der Sinne/A Shock to the Senses, 15.3.-13.7.2013, Albertinum, Galerie Neue Meister, Dresden
Sade. Attaquer le soleil/Sade. Attacking the Sun, 13.10.2014-24.1.2015, Musée d'Orsay, Paris
museum global. Mikrogeschichten einer ex-zentrischen Moderne/museum global. Microhistories of an Ex-centric Modernism, 9.11.2018-9.3.2019, K20 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Grabbeplatz
Charlie Chaplin dans l'œil des avant-gardes/Charlie Chaplin in the Eye of the Avant-garde Charlie Chaplin: When Art Met Cinema (Louvre Abu Dhabi), 17.10.2019-2.2.2020, Musée d'arts de Nantes/Louvre Abu Dhabi
Queere Moderne (1900 bis 1950) / Queer Modernism (1900 to 1950), 26.9.2025-14.2.2026, K20, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf