Tapir Eating a Leaf (Tapir comiendo una hoja)

Ruth Bessoudo Courvoisier

1967

An etching and aquatint print in which Courvoisier arranges two rounded tapirs beside a central leaf, using carved, low‑relief forms and muted color to make a quiet, mythlike study of an animal and its food.

You first notice a triptych of linked plates—the heavy, simplified silhouettes of two tapirs flank a central gilt leaf and wreath, all set in rich gray plate tone with crisp white highlights and an enigmatic band of script above.

By fusing tactile printmaking techniques with stylized, almost iconographic animal imagery, the work links modernist abstraction, folk and archaeological references, and exemplifies the expanded expressive vocabulary of Latin American printmaking in the 1960s.

Palette

Exhibitions

Recent Acquisitions: 61 Lithographs by Toulouse-Lautrec and 31 Aqua...

1946

Birds and Beasts from the Museum of Modern Art

1960

Latin-American Art, 1931–1966, from the Museum Collection

1967

New Acquisitions: Lachaise Torso; Prints

1934