Title
Altamira
Artist
Year
1960
Technique
color lithograph
Image Size
20 3/4 x 15 1/8" image size
Signature
pencil lr
Edition Size
12 of 15
Annotations
pencil title, date, edition
Reference
Paper
heavy white wove
State
published
Publisher
Inventory ID
13804
Price
SOLD
Description
The Cave of Altamira is a cave in Spain famous for its Upper Paleolithic cave paintings featuring drawings and polychrome rock paintings of wild mammals and human hands. It was the first cave, (but second rock painting twelve years after Archibold Carlleyle discovered in India in 1867-68) in which prehistoric cave paintings were discovered. When the discovery was first made public in 1880, it led to a bitter public controversy between experts which continued into the early 20th century, since many did not believe prehistoric man had the intellectual capacity to produce any kind of artistic expression. The acknowledgment of the authenticity of the paintings, which finally came in 1902, changed the perception of prehistoric human beings.