NEW YORK, NY.- Bonhams announces the sale of two exceptional paintings by Max Ernst consigned by a descendent of his widow, the artist and writer Dorothea Tanning. The works are among highlights offered in Impressionist and Modern Art auction on Nov. 16 at Bonhams New York. Neither work has appeared at auction before.

Tremblement de terre printanier (estimate U.S. $600,000-1,000,000) is a monumental work from 1964, painted at Seillans in the South of France, where the German-French artist lived with Tanning following his return from wartime exile in the United States. Je suis une femme, vous êtes un homme, sommes nous la république (estimate U.S. $400,000-600,000) features Ernst's alter ego the bird/man ‘Loplop’ in a dark, clotted landscape beneath a shimmering yellow shell-sun. The use of methods similar to ‘automatic’ and action painting, and techniques such as grattage and a heavy impasto emphasizing the physicality of the process, speaks clearly of Ernst's significant influence on the Abstract Expressionist generation.

Among 20th century artists, Max Ernst (1891-1976) is perhaps matched only by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and Joan Miró (1893-1983) in the span of his relentlessly innovative and consistently influential creative career. His first major influences were the Expressionist Auguste Macke, who he met in 1911, and the Sonderbund exhibition of 1912, which brought Picasso and the Post-Impressionists to Ernst’s native Cologne.

The trauma of his service in the trenches of World War I caused a radical re-evaluation. The result — a rejection of order, the system and settled norms — became Dada. “Ernst became simultaneously a guiding spirit and an amused observer of both Dadaism and its stepchild Surrealism – movements which it has been said made Modern Art possible,” said William O’Reilly, director, Americas and Asia Impressionist and Modern Art.

Ernst was a leading figure in the Paris Art World in the 20s and 30s. He was still in France at the start of World War II, and soon found himself hunted by both sides. Interned by the French as an enemy alien, he escaped but was then arrested and placed in a concentration camp by the Gestapo, deemed a degenerate painter. He escaped again, and with the help of the heiress and patron Peggy Guggenheim traveled to New York. He married Guggenheim as his third wife in 1941.

In New York his path crossed with Dorothea Tanning. Originally from Galesburg, Ill., Tanning arrived in New York in 1935 with a passionate desire to become a painter. Largely self-taught, she developed a strong Surrealist style. In 1942, Peggy Guggenheim asked Ernst to scout out talent for an exhibition of women Surrealist painters. According to Tanning, Ernst came to the studio one afternoon to look at her work, stayed to play chess and moved in within a week. Their relationship of mutual support and inspiration blossomed in New York and Sedona, Ariz., and in Paris and the South of France, until Ernst's death in 1976.

Other highlights include:

• PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973), La première communion; estimate U.S. $600,000-800,000

• MARC CHAGALL (1887-1985), Les mariés sur fond de la Tour Eiffel; estimate U.S. $600,000-800,000

• HENRI LEBASQUE (1865-1937), Morgat, le jardin dans la baie; estimate U.S. $120,000-180,000

Auction preview hours (free and open to the public): In New York, Nov. 9-15 from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. EST (12 p.m. - 5 p.m. EST on weekends); and Nov. 16 from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. EST.