b/w mezzotint
1971
8 1/2 x 8 3/8
edition: 75
signed in pencil
"And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was a plucked off olive leaf: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth."
Mario Avati, a master of the mezzotint process, created a suite of mezzotints in an edition of 75 which depicts ten animals as part of Noah's Ark. He presents the dove returning to the ark holding an olive branch in her beak. This symbol of peace originated with the early Christians who portrayed the act of baptism accompanied by a dove holding an olive branch in its beak and also used the image on their sepulchers.
Mario Avati (French, 1921 – 2009) Born in Monaco of Italian parents, Avati lived in Paris for most of his life. He worked in Nice at the Ecole Nationale des Arts Decoratifs and later studied with Marc Chagall at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He began his professional career as a printmaker in 1947 and started using the mezzotint medium by 1950. In the late 1960s, Avati was instrumental in the contemporary development of color mezzotints. His work is represented in the permanent collections of museums throughout the world including: the Musee du Louvre, London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Chicago Art Institute, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
