1920: Hans-Ulrich Ernst (later known as Jimmy Ernst) is born on June 24 in Cologne, the son of Max Ernst and his first wife, the Jewish art historian and journalist Luise (Straus). After the divorce of the couple, Jimmy stays in Cologne with his mother and her Eifel housekeeper Maja Aretz. As of 1930 he often visits his father in Paris who joined the Surrealistic group. Luise Straus also emigrates to Paris after 1933.
1935-1938: Apprenticeship in type setting at the J. J. Augustin printing house and studies at the Altona School of Arts and Crafts in Hamburg. With the help of Heinrich W. Augustin, he is able to flee to the US. Max Ernst follows in 1941; Luise Straus is deported, and in 1944, her scent is lost
1942-43: He becomes personal assistant of Peggy Guggenheim, the third wife of his father Max Ernst, and heads her gallery Art of this Century. First solo exhibition.
Ab 1940: He starts to paint as a self-taught artist, first in surrealistic manner, later he became important representative of the Abstract Expressionism.
1947: Marries Edith “Dallas” Baumann Brody, the couple has two children (Amy Louise, born in 1953, and Eric Max, born in 1956).
1950: He is involved in the protest and the open letter of the group of Irascible 18 against the disadvantage of the abstract artists at Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
1951: Instructor at the design department of Brooklyn College.
1952: Becomes US citizen and lives in New York City and later on in East Hampton, New York.
1956: He wins the competition for a mural at the building of the Continental National Bank in Lincoln, Nebraska; becomes artist-in-residence at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston; designs mural for the dining room of S.S. President Adams.
1961: Revisits Germany for the first time as well as his father who settled down in Huismes, France, together with his fourth wife Dorothea Tanning. Travels in the USSR as official cultural respresentative of the State Department.
1963: Receives professorship at Brooklyn College.
1967: Under a grant of the Andrew Carnegie Foundation, he studies and reports about Freedom of Expression in the Arts.
1977: Becomes associated member of the National Academy of Design.
1980: Builds a winter home and atelier in Nokomis, Florida.
1982: Receives an honorary doctorate from Southampton College of Long Island University.
1983: Elected to membership of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
1984: Publishes his memoir A Not-So-Still-Life; dies on February 6 in New York City.
