“Creativity is that marvelous capacity to grasp mutually distinct realities and draw a spark from their juxtaposition.” 

– Max Ernst 

The enigmatic dreamscape of Etude pour une éclipse was completed in 1951 while surrealist Max Ernst and his fourth wife, painter Dorthea Tanning, were living in Sedona, Arizona. In 1941, Ernst arrived in the United States from war-torn Europe and in 1942 met Tanning at a party. In 1946, the couple were married and settled in the American southwest, gleaning artistic inspiration from the Indigenous American ways of life, especially their celebrations and ceremonies, prevalent in the region. That same year, Ernst and Tanning were invited, along with English surrealist artist Roland Penrose and the photographer Lee Miller, to visit a Hopi reservation and experience a rain dance, the religious ceremony beseeching the gods for rain and a good harvest, involving the dancers’ holding snakes as they move through their prayer. The ceremony symbolizes the intimate connection between the Hopi tribe and the natural environment, an experience completely unfamiliar to the German artist. The imagery within Etude pour une éclipse, a figure dancing and worshiping the sky against an obscure, mystical background evokes a similar sense of reverence and awe that Ernst must have felt witnessing the rain dance. The subject of the pastel collage appears disjointed, spreading its limbs wide above its head, signifying devotion, in a whirl of blue with patches of yellow and pink. Etude pour une éclipse represents Ernst proclivity, like many European surrealists, towards Native American ceremony, enveloped with qualities of magic and the unknown inspired from his time living amongst and building relationships with the Hopi and Zuni people. 

In 1951, Ernst created several additional works all with the same title, Dancers Under the Starry Sky. These paintings, similar in both style and composition to Etude pour une éclipse, depict fragmented figures dancing against colorful, indistinct backgrounds. The subjects, a blend of human and animalistic elements, once again elicit the novel, mystical freedom of the rain dance witnessed by Ernst. Like the subject of Etude pour une éclipse, the figures are full of potential energy on the precipice of being released, perhaps inducing feelings of anxiety or unease prompted by the artists unfamiliarity with the ancient rite. 

A founding member of both Dada and Surrealism in the early 20th century, Ernst maintained a fascination with Indigenous and non-Western art far before he visited the United States. Like the Dada and Surrealist movement, founded on the principle of the rejection of cultural standards and values, Ernst saw non-Western art as an alternative to the mainstream conventional norms of European or American art. The artist’s attraction towards indigenous art and culture only increased as he spent time living amongst the Hopi and Zuni tribes in the southwest. Over the decade Ernst amasses an impressive collection of Kachina figures, Hopi and Zuni dolls believed to be messengers between the human and spiritual worlds, an even names his dog, his closest companion, Kachina. Ernst maintained a sincere respect for his indigenous neighbors in Arizona for the remainder of his life. 

First united by their love of editions, Carole and Alex Rosenberg cultivated an outstanding New York collection of graphic art, a reflection of their decades-long engagement with the art world and living artists. In 1969, Alex began to publish artists’ prints under the name Transworld Art, pivoting to the art world after selling the telephone answering service he co-owned, Anserphone. Carole Halsband soon joined the venture as an Associate Editor in 1973, after the two became acquainted at her Upper West Side gallery; her first exhibition featured Salvador Dalí’s Memories of Surrealism, the first print portfolio that Alex published. From 1968 to 1988, Transworld Art published more than 700 editions by over 60 artists, many of whom the couple also represented as partners at Alex Rosenberg Gallery. Married in 1977, Carole and Alex Rosenberg’s collection of prints and multiples reifies their personal and professional relationships with great names in modern and contemporary art, including Alexander Calder, Romare Bearden, Salvador Dalí, and Willem de Kooning.  

Alex, who developed a reputation as an expert in the field of prints, passionately worked as a lauded art appraiser from 1986 until the day he died, passing away at the mighty age of 103 in 2022. His over 60-year career across art and business was ripe with great honors and accomplishments – serving as a pilot in World War II, advancing a plethora of progressive political and social causes, and serving as president of the Appraisers Association of America, to name a few. In the context of these many impressive feats, publishing editions through Transworld Art still stood out to Alex as one of his greatest and most meaningful. “I can’t avoid a feeling of extreme nostalgia over my chance of having been able to work with so many gifted artists,” he recounted. “That was perhaps the greatest privilege of my life.”