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John Talleur, professor emeritus of fine art at the University of Kansas, studied with the influential printmaker Mauricio Lasansky at the University of Iowa, where he received his MFA in 1951. Elephants, like may of Talleur's prints, combines virtuoso technique with humor and reveals the artist's knack for recognizing the humorous possibilities of things most people overlook, like the relationship and gait of two elephants. The technique employed, softground etching, involves biting an etched plate through a semi-porous ground. This technique is well suited to Elephants because it convincingly suggests the texture of the animals' skin.