ABOUT THE WORK

Conceived in plaster during the summer of 1944, which he spent in the company of artist Dorothea Tanning and art dealer Julien Levy in Long Island, Max Ernst's Table Mise comprises of an artistic play of forms displayed on a table. The motif of the table can be traced back to earlier lithographs in Ernst's famous Dada-portfolio Fiat modes pereat ars from 1919 – 1920. Underlying this disturbing and unusual laid table are the principles of Dada and Surrealism, which sought to destabilize habitual perceptions of ordinary objects.

This cast is from the lifetime edition of 10 unsigned and unnumbered casts. First cast in bronze in1954, at Modern Art Foundry, New York, from 1944 plaster from a 1944 assemblage of modified objects.