Werner spies biography

In celebration of the centenary of Max Ernst’s birth, the Tate Gallery is mounting a major retrospective of his work, opening on 13 February.

The exhibition is one of the last projects initiated by Sir Alan Bowness, the former Director of the Tate Gallery, and has been brought to completion by Nick Serota, the current director — a long overdue re-assessment of one of the first, as well as one of the most consistently inventive, surrealist artists.

The selection for the exhibition, which encompasses the whole range of media from painting and sculpture, graphic work, collage and frottage (literally “rubbings”) to book illustration and theatre design, has been made by Werner Spies, the German art critic and writer.

Professor Spies, who first met Ernst in 1966 and became a friend of the artist and his family, has written widely on his work and organised major Ernst exhibitions all over the world.

In conversation with Th