Left: Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941), Ecuador, 2008. Salt print on handmade paper. Collection of Emmet and Edith Gowin
Right: Attributed to Johanna Helena Herolt (German, 1668-1723), Three Mice Nibbling Fruit, ca. 1690-1710. Watercolor on vellum. Purchased on the Fellows Fund, with the special assistance of Mrs. Carl Stern and Mrs. Lawrence Hughes, 1979.37
On a mountaintop in the mist forest in Ecuador, Gowin encountered the huge hanging leaf of an unidentified species of Philodendron silhouetted against the clouds. The holes chewed into it by feeding insects act as both a literal record of life in the forest and the self-portrait of a collective mind at work.
In precisely rendered studies of plants and insects, Herolt documented the identifying features and naturally occurring variety of her subject species. Gowin relishes Herolt’s ability to bring alive the salient traits of these flora and fauna.