French Legionnaires Being Eaten By a Lion
Malcolm Morley
American, born Great Britain. 1931–2018
(1984)
In this etching and aquatint, Malcolm Morley stages a nightmarish, theatrical scene in which repeated, falling figures titled as French Legionnaires are overwhelmed by a writhing lion, using prints’ layered colors and lines to dramatize violence and collapse.
What hits you first is the restless, repeated blue soldiers tangled like cutouts against a deep field while a luminous, hairlike yellow mane threads through them, turning the composition into a turbulent braid of motion and attack.
The work exemplifies Morley’s late-20th-century blend of narrative imagery and expressionist energy—using the technical possibilities of etching and aquatint to make printmaking behave like a painterly, cinematic medium during the 1980s revival of figuration.
Medium
Etching and aquatint
Classification
Department
Credit
Dorothy Braude Edinburg Fund
Accession
193.1984
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
