Surrealist Art - The Bergmann Collection

One of the finest and most famous collections of Surrealist art ever assembled is that of Chicago philanthropists Lindy and Edwin A. Bergman. Now housed at the Art Institute of Chicago, the collection encompasses 118 works in a wide range of media, from drawings to paintings and sculpture. The thirty-two artists represented in the collection and featured in this new book constitute a veritable who's who of the Surrealist movement. Included are Jean Arp, Andre Breton, Leonora Carrington, Joseph Cornell, Salvador Dali, Jean Dubuffet, Max Ernst, Wifredo Lam, Rene Magritte, Joan Miru, Francis Picabia, Pablo Picasso, and Yves Tanguy. One of the collection's highlights is a group of thirty-eight boxes and collages by Joseph Cornell, the largest and most representative grouping of this artist's work in the world. Other outstanding pieces include Picabia's whimsical assemblage Women with Matchsticks, Tanguy's miniature sculpture-painting The Certitude of the Never Seen, Ernst's masterful painting The Garden Airplane Trap, and Magritte's memorable The Banquet. Dawn Ades, the noted critic and historian of the Surrealist movement, has written an absorbing account of the Bergman collection, from its inception to the present. All the objects are reproduced in full color; each entry is accompanied by information on provenance and exhibition history, as well as by Ms. Ades's knowledgeable commentary. The resulting book provides both a comprehensive view of a distinguished collection of art and an interpretive history of this intriguing, popular, and influential art movement.