","citation":"Pere Gimferrer, Max Ernst o la dissolucio de la identitat (Barcelona : Ediciones Poligrafia, 1977).
, p. 69 fig. 75","date":1977,"id":6034,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/3541193"},{"boilertext":"David Larkin, ed., Max Ernst, (New York: Ballantine Books, 1975).","citation":"David Larkin, ed., Max Ernst, (New York: Ballantine Books, 1975)., fig. 18","date":1975,"id":6966,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/937218776"},{"boilertext":"
Edward Quinn, Max Ernst: textes de Max Ernst, (Paris: Editions cercle d'art, 1976).
","citation":"Edward Quinn, Max Ernst: textes de Max Ernst, (Paris: Editions cercle d'art, 1976).
, fig. 260","date":1976,"id":6967,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/888550947"},{"boilertext":"Wakakuwa Midori, エルンスト (Erunsuto), (Tōkyō: Kōdansha, 1981).","citation":"Wakakuwa Midori, エルンスト (Erunsuto), (Tōkyō: Kōdansha, 1981)., p. 36 (color illus.)","date":1981,"id":6148,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/22846402"},{"boilertext":"Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013)","citation":"Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 267","date":2013,"id":1994,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/865020505"},{"boilertext":"Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007)","citation":"Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 213 (illus.)","date":2007,"id":474,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/191864564"}],"nowebuse":"False","periods":[],"department":"Modern and Contemporary Art","attribute_groups":[{"id":2199321,"term":"European Art","termtype":"Collecting Area"},{"id":2199324,"term":"Art Since 1945","termtype":"Collecting Area"}],"daterange":"A.D. 1900-1945","dateend":1941,"depicted":[],"titles":[{"title":"The Witch","titletype":"Primary Title","displayorder":1}],"hasimage":"true","creditlinerepro":"© 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / ADAGP, Paris","objectnumber":"y1979-5","inscribed":null,"texts":[{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Gallery Label","textentryhtml":"To channel the unconscious into art, Ernst embraced techniques that suspended the artist’s deliberation by incorporating processes governed by chance. Like those of many avant-garde European artists of his generation, Ernst’s practice was influenced by the writings of the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, on the unconscious, the irrational, and the uncanny. Painted the same year he fled Europe for New York to seek sanctuary from the Nazis, The Witch depicts one of Ernst’s favorite subjects, a fantastical figure whose powers of metamorphosis inspire both fear and fascination. The Witch was made using decalcomania, a process in which sheets of glass or paper are pressed into wet paint, resulting in unpredictable bubbles and rivulets that serve as the starting point for the final composition.","remarks":"MOD_09-12_WLA – Day 1 Cataloguing"},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Handbook Entry","textentryhtml":"\r\nA pivotal figure in the twentieth-century avant-garde, Max Ernst helped form the Cologne-based Dadaists in 1919. He moved to Paris in 1922 and became involved with France’s nascent Surrealist movement a few years later. Influenced by the writings of Sigmund Freud, Ernst prized the unconscious, the irrational, and the uncanny. Art, he believed, should serve as a repository for immaterial states of mind. The Surrealists projected many of their fantasies onto women, and Ernst was no exception. Painted the same year he fled Europe for New York seeking sanctuary from the Nazis, this painting depicts one of Ernst’s favorite subjects — the witch — whose powers of metamorphosis inspired both fear and fascination. In order to more faithfully channel the unconscious into art, the Surrealists embraced automatism, a technique intended to inhibit deliberation. The Witch, for instance, was made using decalcomania, a process whereby sheets of glass or paper are pressed into wet paint, resulting in unpredictable bubbles and rivulets. ","remarks":null},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Provenance","textentryhtml":"\n\tMax Ernst, the artist; gift to Alfred H. Barr Jr. (1902–1981), Class of 1922, and Margaret Scolari Barr (1901—1987), 1942 [1]; gift to the Princeton University Art Museum, 1979.\n
\n\n\t[1] Max Ernst presented this painting as a gift to Alfred Barr in gratitude for his assistance during World War II.\n
","remarks":null}],"datebegin":1941,"sortnumber":"1979 5y","published_date":"2026-05-05 02:00:10.715976","objectid":32398,"dimensions":"24.5 × 19 cm (9 5/8 × 7 1/2 in.)\r\nframe: 33.4 × 28.6 × 3.8 cm (13 1/8 × 11 1/4 × 1 1/2 in.)\r\nshadow box frame: 47.6 × 42.5 × 8.9 cm (18 3/4 × 16 3/4 × 3 1/2 in.)","on_view":false}