Max Ernst and the Aesthetic of Commercial Tourism: Max Among Some of His Favorite Dolls

"Max Ernst and the Aesthetic of Commercial Tourism: Max Among His Favorite Dolls" examines Surrealist artist Max Ernst's practice of collecting Hopi and Zuni kachina figurines. Ernst, like some other European Surrealists, was an avid collector of Native Amercian material culture and ceremonial hardware. Surrealists interest in Indigenous material was part of a larger program to destabilize European privileging of the mind and art as rational constructs.

This paper focuses on James Thrall Soby's 1941 photograph of Ernst surrounded by his collection of kachina figurine, which was first published in the April edition of View Magazine. As Soby's portrait of Ernst has been reproduced many times over course of the past six decades, it has become an emblem of the Surrealists general interest in Native Americana.

In contrast to vanguardism with which Ernst and other Surrealist's collecting practices is usually credited, this paper examines Soby portrait of Ernst's within practices of commercial tourism and the souvenir industry in the Southwest. By the mid 1940s, Hopi and Zuni kachina figurine makers had a well-developed commercial kachina figurine industry that targeted the patronage of visitors to the regions. Evidence levied in the development of Ernst's tourist aesthetic includes his mode of collection, display, and stories that surround Max's assemblage of kachina figurines. This paper further differentiates it from the collecting practices of Surrealist counterparts such as André Breton.