Max Ernst: and The Genie of Amboise

This book was written to mark the 50th anniversary of The Max Ernst Fountain in Amboise. Ernst dedicated this masterpiece to Leonardo da Vinci, the genius of Amboise. The story, told backwards, begins with The Fountain. From there we follow Ernst to the tiny village of Huismes where he designed it; to Paris where he lived before moving to Huismes; to Arizona where he built a love nest in the desert with his fourth and last wife; to New York where he married his third wife, Peggy Guggenheim; to the Ardèche in the south of France where, with his lover the Surrealist artist, Leonora Carrington, he was in hiding from his second wife; to pre-war Paris where, as an illegal immigrant, he lived in a ménage à trois with Gala Éluard before she married Salvador Dali and finally, to Germany where Max Ernst was born. The author, a graduate in Art History, lives in Amboise with her husband, the photographer Mark Playle. Intrigued with The Fountain they set themselves the task of unravelling the mystery of how it got there. In the process, they found out what made Max Ernst tick. Art made him tick, Surrealist art in particular, close friends such as Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp made him tick, but what made Max Ernst tick above all else was love. This was a man who followed his heart.

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