The Fugitive (L'Évadé) from Natural History (Histoire Naturelle)

The Fugitive (L'Évadé) from Natural History (Histoire Naturelle) by Max Ernst is a seminal piece of Surrealist graphic art, created around c. 1925 and published as one of thirty-four images in the influential portfolio in 1926. This artwork is classified as a print, specifically a collotype produced after the artist’s revolutionary original technique: frottage. The portfolio, Histoire Naturelle, marked a critical turning point in Ernst’s career, establishing him as a leader in the Parisian avant-garde by adapting subconscious drawing techniques for the reproductive print medium.

Ernst developed frottage by placing paper over textured surfaces, such as plank flooring, corduroy, or leaves, and rubbing with lead or charcoal to transfer the pattern. This process utilized automatism, allowing the subconscious mind to interpret the resulting textures and suggest strange, organic forms. These unique original drawings were then faithfully reproduced as high-quality collotypes for the publication, ensuring that these ground-breaking prints could be widely disseminated throughout the French art world.

The image presented in The Fugitive evokes a sense of desolate movement and biomorphic distortion. The rubbing technique transforms everyday textures into indistinct, alien environments from which the titular figure seems to emerge or escape. This blurring of recognizable subject matter with chaotic, granular texture perfectly captures the unsettling, dreamlike quality central to Surrealism in the mid-1920s.

The decision to publish the work ensured widespread influence for Ernst’s mechanical interpretation of the subconscious. This significant example of the portfolio is held in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, underscoring its historical importance as a pioneering work of graphic art that exploited the potential of prints to translate automatic drawing into a reproducible, influential form.