The Elephant Celebes

Painting by Max Ernst

The Elephant Celebes (or short Celebes) is a 1921 painting by the German Dadaist and surrealist Max Ernst. It is among the most famous of Ernst's early surrealist works and "undoubtedly the first masterpiece of Surrealist painting in the de Chirico tradition." Regarding the art of collage, Ernst said, "It is the systematic exploitation of the coincidental or artificially provoked encounter of two or more unrelated realities on an apparently inappropriate plane and the spark of poetry created by the proximity of these realities." The central focus of the painting is a giant mechanical elephant. It is round and has a trunk like hose protruding from it. The figure's round body was modeled after a photograph in an anthropological journal of a clay corn bin from a West African culture, the Konkomba. Celebes suggests "ritual and totemic sculpture of African origin", evidenced by the totem like pole at right and the figure's bull horns. Der Elefant von Celebes
hat hinten etwas Der Elefant von Sumatra,
der vögelt seine Grossmama. Der Elefant von Indien,
der kann das Loch nicht The elephant from Celebes
has sticky, yellow bottom grease. The elephant from Sumatra
always fucks his grandmama. The elephant from India
can never find the hole ha ha.

The painting's short original title is Celebes, according to inscriptions on the front and back of the canvas. Ernst painted Celebes in Cologne in 1921. The French poet and Surrealist Paul Éluard visited Ernst that year and purchased the painting and took it back to Paris. Éluard would buy other of Ernst's paintings, and Ernst painted murals for Éluard's house in Eaubonne. It remained in Éluard's collection until 1938 and was then purchased by the English artist Roland Penrose. It has been in the collection of the Tate gallery, London, since 1975 and is displayed in the Tate Modern. The money from Penrose's sale of the painting was used to set up the grant giving Elephant Trust which continues to administer bursaries to artists and small arts organisation in the UK. The back of the canvas is decorated with some doodles that are seemingly unconnected to the subject matter on the front of the canvas, including two figures holding golf clubs adjacent to the word "GOLF".

The painting was the inspiration for the naming of the Elephant 6 recording collective. According to Apples in Stereo frontman Robert Schneider, he chose the name because he was enchanted by the painting but misheard its title.