A cast paper relief print by the innovative sculptor/printmaker Garner Tullis, done as a portrait of the late San Francisco restaurateur and noted art collector Modesto Lanzone (1929 - 1999). The paper is handmade by the artist and appears to be coated in a graphite-like paint or lacquer. Set against a "canvas" of stretched cream linen or shot-silk, it emerges like a carved stone portrait.
Garner Tullis first became known for his printmaking, especially monotypes. His oeuvre expanded to include non-objective encaustic paintings, still life with acrylic, bronze sculpture and innovative work with film, among other mediums. In the early 1970s, he experimented with a process of bonding thin films of titanium and quartz to glass plates in a vacuum chamber, and the effect was "mists of rainbow color spectra over mirror-like reflecting surfaces". (Albright 318)