Born in Brühl, near Cologne, in 1891, Max Ernst (1891-1976) was a pioneer of Dada and one of the founding figures of Surrealism. Settling in Paris in 1922, he invented new techniques such as frottage, grattage and decalcomania, which let chance and the unconscious give rise to images, and created collage novels including La Femme 100 têtes (1929) and Une semaine de bonté (1934). After spending the Second World War years in the United States, he returned to France, received the Grand Prize for Painting at the Venice Biennale in 1954 and died in Paris in 1976.