Tag Archives: Max Unold

Ernst and the painter Max Unold

Ernst and Anicuta were lifelong friends with the artist Max Unold and his wife Grete, with whom they shared a social circle in Munich.

Max Unold was a prominent painter, who painted a portrait of Anicuta in 1913 called ‘The Lady in the Blue Dress’, which can be seen here.

Anicuta also corresponded frequently with Unold in the early 1900s, and through the German Feldpost system during the First World War. The Levin collection holds a significant number of these letters.

Letter from Ernst to Grete , May 1964 expressing sympathies for death of Max Unold on 18th May 1964.

In this letter, Ernst describes the history of his and Max’s friendship … The two met in Winter 1906 in Munich, whilst Ernst was in his first semester of studying medicine. Through his father’s friends, Ernst was secretary of an academic drama society, where Unold performed a piece by Courteline with his artist friends and Ernst admired him greatly. Their paths diverged because Ernst went to do further study in Heidelberg. In 1912, he returned to Munich to sit his exams and they both met a man called Walter Strich there and became close. Ernst served with his Bavarian regiment on the Western Front until the end of the war. Then Ernst and Strich both married, and they formed a group in Munich. “It was a wild time…and Unold and I debated through the night on the issues of God and the world, Martin Luther, Communism and Christianity, Literature and Art and Theatre.” Ernst says that they did not once fight in 15 years, and not due to himself but to Max, who was impossible to fall out with. Ernst claims that “if anything hurt me about leaving home [Germany], it was the loss of this old dear friend”.