Animals and Napoleons

c. 1983, etching with watercolor, 6 x 14½ in.

Marcia Rackow, painter & critic, asks: “What do we see in Koppelman’s whimsical and hand-colored print Animals and Napoleons? Not one Emperor, but many. I counted ten Napoleons cavorting on the green grass with the playfully drawn animals. An orange giraffe, a yellow camel, a pink rhinoceros are among the many creatures in this zoological display. This is a side of Napoleon one doesn’t often see—that relation of dignity and playfulness.”

“You’ll notice,” Chaim Koppelman wrote of it, “there are a number of Napoleons here in their grey hats. When persons see there are other little emperors and empresses around and they’re romping with all sorts of friendly wild animals, it helps us see and laugh at that snobbism in ourselves.”

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