"Chers parents".

Gouache, 48 x 28 cm, signed and dated at lower right.

Under passe-partout, which overlaps the picture, forming witty prison bars. Under frame.

During the late 1970's and early 80's the popular Belgian artist Chantal de Hemptinne made a series of gouaches entitled "Chers parents", where she identifies our subjective humanity with our anscestors and confronts this Darwinian notion with our present treatment of animals. She was inspired by a statement of Friedrich Nietzsche who stated: "Once you were apes, yet even now man is more of an ape than any of the apes".