Tapir Eating a Leaf (Tapir comiendo una hoja)
Ruth Bessoudo Courvoisier
Brazilian, born Germany. 1914–2015
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.
Medium
Etching and aquatint
Dimensions
plate (irreg.): 7 3/4 × 23 3/16" (19.7 × 58.9 cm); sheet: 17 15/16 × 26 7/16" (45.5 × 67.2 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Inter-American Fund
Accession
1624.1968
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
