A collection of graphics by the famous German artist Max Ernst is pulling in the crowds at the Hermitage.
There are about 300 works on display in the museum's 12-Columned Hall including placards, collages and works extracted from books and magazines.
The exhibition has moved to the Hermitage from the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, and will be there until September 10.
Max Ernst never considered himself tied to any one particular nation or nationality. He was born and educated in Germany, then lived in France and the USA.
Ernst used a wide variety of printing techniques for the books he illustrated and invented a few of his own -- `frottage' and `oscillation' or `dripping'.
He rubbed, scraped, shredded, glued, erased, blotted and combed, and regarded no material as unworthy of serving the fine arts.
He combined the widely disparate textures of wood, leaves, leather, crumbled paper, bread, straw, string and zwieback in his compositions.
The exhibition in the Hermitage is provided by Lufthansa and represents the firm's third collection to be sent abroad as "a roving German ambassador". Lufthansa symbolically acknowledges that the airways not only transport goods and passengers, but also culture.
The collection spans Ernst's career from 1919 when he founded the famous Dada movement, to 1974, when he produced, at the age of 83, the last of his astonishing illustrated books.
Max Ernst's provocative works have been likened to "noiseless explosions" and he himself once said he was like a gentle earthquake that shifts the furniture in a room into startling new positions.
Belatedly, some critics have come to recognise him as a key figure in modernism along with Pablo Picasso.