Jean Arp

Tête; Objet à traire / Head; Object to Milk, ca. 1925

cardboard, gold leaf, and fabric

acquired with the support of the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung, the Society of Friends and Patrons of the Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck, the Stiftung Rheinland-Pfalz für Kultur, and numerous private donors, and with the assistance of Omer Tiroche Gallery

This relief was created in 1925 or 1926 under the influence of Paris Surrealism, which detached everyday objects from their contexts in order to place them in new, sometimes absurd relationships to one another. These fantastic realities drew inspiration from dreams and the unconscious.

Arp used fabric in just two of the 781 reliefs he created between 1914 and 1966. His use of gold leaf is equally rare. This piece was originally part of the collection of André Breton, the most important theorist of Surrealism.