Max Ernst “The Antipope” at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice

Painting - Oil on Canvas (160.8 x 127.1 cm) 1941-42

Max Ernst, The Antipope “The Antipope” was painted between December 1941 and March 1942, when Max Ernst had just fled Europe to settle in the United States.

A painting in the right part of which Peggy Guggenheim is depicted both as a green column and a woman in love, slightly dressed in pink, caressing a strange horse that is none other than Max Ernst himself.

Ernst pointed out that the central character, presented by three quarters, was Peggy's daughter, Pegeen.

A double-faced Pegeen looks at the couple with her mother on the right and thoughtfully the lagoon landscape on the other side.

A complex and ambiguous picture where the other woman horse could be Leonora Carrington, with whom Max Ernst had a relationship at the same time.

A love affair explains the presence of the spear that divides the painting in its centre, related to the rupture, which became irretrievable, of the romantic relationship between Peggy and Max.

Max Ernst, The Antipope