Natural History (Histoire naturelle)

Natural History (Histoire naturelle) by Max Ernst is a foundational work of Surrealism, created around c. 1925 and officially published in 1926. This portfolio comprises thirty-four collotypes, which reproduce the artist’s seminal experiments with the automatic technique of frottage. Frottage, meaning "rubbing," is a drawing method where the artist places paper over a textured surface—such as wood grain, leaves, or netting—and rubs it with a soft pencil or charcoal. This process allows the inherent patterns of the underlying material to suggest unexpected forms, effectively bypassing conscious control and resulting in imagery rooted in the subconscious mind.

Ernst developed this revolutionary method in 1925, inspired by the texture of floorboards he observed while staying in a hotel room. The resulting prints move beyond simple abstraction, presenting often startling and imaginative biological, cosmological, and geological forms. The artist allowed the textures captured through frottage to evolve into bizarre, biomorphic landscapes, fossilized animals, or embryonic structures, thus linking the vastness of the natural world with the deeply psychological exploration central to Surrealist doctrine.

This commitment to automatism and the use of unconventional methods firmly positioned the artist at the center of the Parisian Surrealist movement during the 1920s. As a crucial example of French experimental prints from this era, Natural History demonstrated the viability of mechanical reproduction—in this case, collotypes—as a means for rapidly disseminating radical artistic ideas. The thirty-four images contained within the portfolio challenged traditional notions of artistic authorship by embracing chance and texture. A complete edition of this pivotal work is held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), recognizing its importance both as a major Surrealist achievement and a milestone in the history of modern printmaking.