hans-ulrich ernst to secure the release of his father from internment. the erc secured his release in 1941 and max ernst arrived in new york from nazi occupied france. in 1944, unknown to jimmy, his mother was sent to auschwitz concentration camp from drancy, a detention camp near paris. she did not survive. ernst became director of the art of this century gallery in 1942. a year later he had his first one-person exhibition.during the late 1940s he became a member of the irascible eighteen, a group of abstract painters who protested against the metropolitan museum of art's policy towards amer…