En Ungue Leonem

Aliss Tunbo

In this earthy, geometric abstraction, little-known printmaker Aliss Tunbo exhibits the signs of a skilled explorer who can coax delicate, complex textures from the otherwise rigid screen printing method. She has titled the piece after the Latin phrase translating to “from the claw you can judge the lion,” meaning one can judge the whole from the sample.

With this in mind, her composition suggests anything from a bird’s eye view of a city to microscopic technology seen under a microscope. Or, perhaps, it was simply a non-representational piece whose title came after the fact. Either way, it is exemplary of the mid-century aesthetic and the work of a talented artist whose career in art was all too brief.