The Elephant Celebes
1921 Tate Modern, London
About this artwork
An oil painting depicting a large, boiler-like creature with an elephantine body, a bull's head, and a vacuum cleaner-like trunk, alongside a headless, partially nude female torso. The work blends industrial motifs with animal and human forms in a surreal landscape.
Did you know?
The Elephant Celebes is one of Max Ernst's most celebrated Dadaist and early Surrealist works, created in 1921. Inspired by an ethnographic photograph of a Sudanese grain silo, Ernst transformed it into a monstrous, mechanical elephant, blending animalistic and industrial forms. The painting's name also references a children's rhyme, adding to its unsettling and enigmatic nature.
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The Elephant Celebes
Max Ernst, 1921
