Celebes
- Artist: Max Ernst
- Date: 1921
- Medium: Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions: support: 1254 x 1079 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the “Celebes” by Max Ernst, painted in 1921. The painting is a surrealist study that begins with a photograph of a Sudanese corn‑bin, which Ernst reshapes into a sinister mechanical beast. The central, rotund form has a horned head, a pair of tusks that hint at a second head, and a long, snake‑like neck that coils out of a hollow. A bright, oddly‑colored construction crowns its back, and a mysterious eye watches from there.
Around the monster, two fish swim in the sky, and three upright objects stand like silent sentries. In the lower corner, a headless mannequin raises an arm, as if beckoning the creature forward. The overall composition feels dream‑like, echoing the Freudian technique of free association and the subconscious mind’s penchant for uncanny juxtapositions.
The title comes from a playful German rhyme about the “elephant from Celebes” with sticky, yellow bottom grease. Ernst’s use of found images and collage‑inspired rearrangement creates a world that feels both familiar and wildly alien—exactly the kind of visual puzzle that made surrealism such a provocative movement.
See it in person
Celebes is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
