Barbara Trupp Prints and Multiples

(20th century) Theban Archaeopteryx Lithographica lithograph edition of 15 signed Barbara Trupp was born in Nebraska and spent her childhood in Montana. She studied at the Banff Centre School of Fine Arts in Alberta, Canada; the University of Puget Sound; and the University of Michigan. Theban Archeaopteryx Lithographica was printed at the Plucked Chicken Press in Evanston, Illinois. “The stone is the shape of the Rosetta Stone, unlocking language, [a] key to the past,” says Tripp. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you came across a stone, chipped at it, and revealed layer upon layer of visual history, images from sophisticated Egypt back to Paleozoic trilobites? “Lithography stones, quarried from the Jura Mountains of Bavaria, reach us from the Jurassic period of the Mesozoic, bearing fossils of the first birds. The bird fossil looked like it was doing an Egyptian dance, and that reminded me of the wall paintings of the House of Eternity in Thebes. ‘Paint the walls brightly, cheerfully, so that our souls will take the form of birds and fly,’ said Sennefer, the mayor of Thebes, in the tomb of his wife Meryet. “Fossils and archeological evidence provide proof that others existed before us, and allow us to see their thoughts. The past is with us. Like Archaeopteryx, Sennefer and Meryet still fly through eternity, though frozen in stone. Above them is the protective eye of Horus. Trilobites represent a breathtaking explosion of Cambrian life forms. Between Archaeopteryx and Egypt, I wanted mammals. Petroglyphs. Human marks. Because my right hand is the trained hand, I drew with my left, childlike. And I drew with a stick, dipped in asphaltum, and a ratty old brush...