A powerful Art Deco etching by Georges-Lucien Guyot showing a puma seated in profile. The cat turns its head to meet the viewer with a calm, steady gaze. Guyot builds up the animal’s muscular form in rich, velvety tones of black and grey, so the body has real weight and volume, while the background stays bare. The long tail ends in a graphic curl, a stylized flourish typical of Art Deco animal art.
Guyot was one of the leading French animaliers of the interwar period, and he worked as a painter, sculptor, and printmaker. He spent long hours sketching live animals at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, and big cats were his favorite subject. He is best known for his bronze sculptures of panthers, pumas, and bears, and his prints show the same strong sense of form and the same simplified, modern line.