Meret Oppenheim

An artist with a complex personality, a free and instinctive creativity, versatile in application of the various artistic techniques. After her move to Paris in 1932, she gets in contact with all the great masters of surrealism, such as Arp, Giacometti, Breton, Man Ray, Duchamp and Max Ernst who became her intimate companion. The surrealist movement had great influence in Oppenheim’s work but nevertheless she could create her own identity. Her most famous work “Déjeuner en fourrure” (Breakfast in fur), that was purchased by Alfred H. Barr from Charles Ratton Gallery for the MoMA in New York, dates back to these years. Back to Paris in 1939, she took part to the exhibition on “imaginary” furniture with Max Ernst and Leonor Fini; in that event, she presented the famous table with bird’s legs.