Bel Ami competition

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The Bel Ami International Art Competition was founded in 1945/46 for the American film The Private Affairs of Bel Ami (1947) by its producer David L. Loew (1897–1973) and the director Albert Lewin (1894– 1968) advertised. The film based on the 1885 novel Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) describes the professional and social rise of the former sergeant Georges Duroy in Paris at the end of the 19th century. The screenwriter and director Albert Lewin wanted to incorporate an image of the temptation of Saint Anthony that was to appear in a close-up in a key scene of the film. This was preceded by his 1945 film, The Portrait of Dorian Gray , in which a painting (here by Ivan Albright ) also played an important role.

The participants

Twelve artists were invited, eleven of whom delivered a picture with the desired subject for a fee of 500 dollars each:

Also Leonor Fini (1908-1996) was invited but did not participate in the competition.

The jury and their decision

The temptation of Saint Anthony
Max Ernst , 1945
Oil on canvas
109 × 129 cm
Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

The jury, consisting of the artist Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968), the art historian Alfred H. Barr (1902–1981) and the New York gallery owner Sidney Janis (1896–1989), selected the work of Max Ernst, who was the winner of the competition got another $ 2,500. In his work he drew on models such as Matthias Grünewald , while Salvador Dalí stuck to Hieronymus Bosch : Antonius is attacked by monsters that are manifestations of his sick soul. Max Ernst stated: "Shrieking for help and light across the stagnant water of his dark sick soul, Saint Anthony receives as an answer the echo of his fear, the laughter of the monsters created by his visions."

Both the film and Max Ernst's picture did not go down well with the critics. A New York Times critic compared the painting of Saint Anthony by Max Ernst to a "half-cooked lobster" and turned away in disgust. The eleven paintings were shown at exhibitions in the USA, England and France until the end of 1947.

Today Max Ernst's attempt at Antonius belongs to the collection of the Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg. Other pictures from the competition also hang in large art collections and are now world famous, such as Dalí's La Tentation de Saint Antoine (1946) with spider-legged horses and elephants, which the saint tries to banish with a cross. It is in the holdings of the Museum of Modern Art in Brussels.

Web links and sources

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bel Ami International Art Competition, American Federation of Arts, Washington 1946