When you’re friends with a Surrealist artist, you might find yourself in a surreal situation. Imagine eating lunch with a friend at your house and, out of the blue, he suggests that you cover an entire exterior wall of your new house with a mural.
This is what happened to David Shaw, a painter and friend of the Surrealist painter Jimmy Ernst (1920-1984). According to Shaw himself, Ernst originally suggested that Shaw do the painting, but fearful of fumbling such a big, visible project, he instead urged Ernst to take on the mural, and he readily accepted.
Jimmy Ernst was the son of Max Ernst (1891-1976), an early participant in the European Dadaist movement and a renowned Surrealist. Jimmy followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming an accomplished painter in his own right and showing his work in museums all over the world. He was a pivotal figure in East Hampton, and upon his death, in 1984, his close friends established the Jimmy Ernst Artists Alliance, an organization that supports the interests of artists on the East End.
In the summer of 1957, sitting in Shaw’s backyard, Ernst was moved to create. He told Shaw to go to the dime store and buy him automobile paint in black, white, and red, as well as several cheap house-painting brushes. The next day, Ernst began painting the mural without so much as a pencil sketch, producing an abstract work that covered an 8-foot-by-20-foot rectangle on the gray shingles of Shaw’s house.
The completed mural can be seen in this East Hampton Star archive photo, taken by Helen Harrison, who would go on to become the director of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in Springs. The mural remained on the wall until Shaw sold his Amagansett residence to Owen Perla and Sue Campbell in 1984. That same year, the new owners agreed to have the mural removed and preserved in a four-year loan agreement with Hofstra University. Its fate after that exhibition remains unknown.
Julia Tyson is a librarian and archivist in the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection.
