Max Ernst ( April 1891 – April
1976) was a German (naturalized American in 1948) painter, sculptor, graphic
artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada
movement and surrealism. He had no formal artistic training, but his
experimental attitude toward the making of art resulted in his invention of
frottage—a technique that uses pencil rubbings of objects as a source of
images—and grattage, an analogous technique in which paint is scraped across
canvas to reveal the imprints of the objects placed beneath. He is also noted
for his novels consisting of collages.