Meret Oppenheim frequently referred to the transformation of insects and animals. Moments like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly have intense energy and potential. A butterfly’s passage through life is concentrated; its life is short and brilliant. Oppenheim drew this form in 1975, and used it as the title sheet of a portfolio of six lithographs entitled ‘Parapapillonneries’ (1975), first shown at Michel Cassé’s gallery in Paris in 1976. In 1979 it was also made as a silver-coloured object with a red stone eye. While other prints in the series resemble dragonflies and butterflies, this form has avian characteristics and is pictured upside down, as if in mid-air tumble.
Meret Oppenheim (1913-1985) was an artist like no other. She found early fame with the Surrealists, but she would transcend that group to become one of the most important Swiss cultural figures of the 20th century…
