Max Ernst

Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealism in Europe. 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 textured objects and relief surfaces to create images—and grattage, an analogous technique in which paint is scraped across canvas to reveal the imprints of the objects placed beneath. Ernst is noted for his unconventional drawing methods as well as for creating novels and pamphlets using the method of collages. He served as a soldier for four years during World War I, and this experience left him shocked, traumatised and critical of the modern world. During World War II he was designated an "undesirable foreigner" while living in France.

2 April 1891

Born on the same birth date (2 April 1891): Jack Buchanan • Tristão de Bragança Cunha

Born on the same birth day (2 April): Adam Fleming (journalist) • Delfo Cabrera • Hanno Pevkur • Katrin Rutschow-Stomporowski • Lise Thibault • Pablo Aguilar (footballer, born 1987) • Ricky Hendrick • Rita Gam • Rodrigo Riquelme (footballer, born 2000) • Vladimir Kuznetsov (javelin thrower)

Born in the same month (April 1891): Arnold Jackson (British Army officer) • B. R. Ambedkar • Dorothy P. Lathrop • Edward Wilfred Taylor • Frank Barson • Françoise Rosay • George Adamski • Harold Jeffreys • Jack Buchanan • Laura Gilpin • Laura Vicuña • Maurice Buckley • Nella Larsen • Ole Kirk Christiansen • Otto Lasanen • Robert Scholl • Sacco and Vanzetti • Sergei Prokofiev • Tristão de Bragança Cunha • Vittorio Jano