Detail View: Visual Resources Teaching Collection: Animals

aahi0001871

Animals

full view

1941

creation

Rufino Tamayo (Mexican, 1899-1991)

male

Mexican painter, printmaker, sculptor and collector. He is one of a select group of Mexican painters who attained international reputations in the 20th century, in his case sustained over a long and varied career. Opposed to the ideological current represented by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco, he eschewed ephemeral political messages in favour of purely pictorial and aesthetic questions. He came from a region in Mexico noted for its traditions and indigenous groups, its Pre-Columbian art and highly-coloured popular art, all of which influenced his work as early as Woman in Grey (1931; Mexico City, Mus. A. Mod.), a primitivistic image of a female nude. Throughout his life he collected more than 1000 Pre-Columbian ceramics and sculptures, donating them in 1974 to the people of Oaxaca as the Museo de Arte Prehispánico. On the death of his parents in 1911, Tamayo settled in Mexico City to live with his aunt. He attended the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes from 1917 to 1921 but was essentially self-taught. From 1936 he lived intermittently in New York, where he came into contact with the art of Matisse, Braque and Picasso, which influenced his development. In 1938 he began teaching at the Dalton School, New York, generally spending his winters there and summers in Mexico City; in 1949 he made his first visit to Europe, where he subsequently established a considerable reputation through numerous exhibitions. Tamayo's skill and sensibility as a draughtsman were fundamental to his art. As a painter he was an accomplished and inventive technician and an outstanding colourist, notably in easel paintings but also in murals. Linear contours, flat areas of colour and a highly formalized surface design of interlocking shapes characterize Tamayo's early work, such as Women of Tehuantepec (1939; Buffalo, NY, Albright–Knox A.G.), a depiction of the inhabitants of Oaxaca and characteristic of his recurring concern for Mexican types and costumes. His use of brilliant colour as a constructive element, together with a growing softness of forms and delicate but richly-brushed surfaces, increasingly defined his style, as can be seen by comparing two of his many animal pictures: Animals (1941; New York, MOMA), a stylized depiction of two ferocious-looking dogs howling at the moon and guarding their bones, and Cow Swatting Flies (1951; Austin, U. TX, Ransom Human. Res. Cent.), a gently humorous and light-filled painting. A similar development can be traced between the Flute Player (1944; New York, IBM Corp.) and Man with Guitar . Tamayo's later paintings demonstrate little stylistic development but evince an ever-growing technical refinement and originality in the use of colour. Among the best-known of his varied subjects are still-lifes, such as those featuring great slices of watermelon, for example Melon Slices (1950; New York, MOMA), and often penetrating portraits, such as Olga (1964; Mexico City, Mus. A. Contemp. Int. Rufino Tamayo) or the study of the painter Jean Dubuffet (1972; Mexico City, Mus. A. Contemp. Int. Rufino Tamayo), with whose taste for primitive imagery and textured surfaces Tamayo's work has much in common. Tamayo also produced pictures in which a refined sensualism is conveyed through warm colours modified by different intentions. Allusions to love are sometimes subtle, as in Woman and Bird (1944; Cleveland, OH, Mus. A.), and sometimes blatant, as in Nude in White (1943; Oslo, Kstnernes Hus). Another of Tamayo's preoccupations, both in his canvases and in some murals, was Man's place in the universe. Man before the Infinite (1950; Brussels, Mus. A. Mod.), in which a stylized figure gazes at a distant constellation of stars, Celestial Bodies (1946; Milan, Gal. A. Mod.) and the mural Total Eclipse (acrylic on canvas, 1976; Monterrey, Nue. León Grupo Indust. ALFA), a return to a subject treated 30 years earlier (Total Eclipse, 1946; Cambridge, MA, Fogg), all bear witness to his continuous interest in the theme. Tamayo's work as a muralist was independent of the politically-inspired movement represented by Rivera, Orozco and Siqueiros, and he preferred to paint on enormous stretched canvases. He produced his first mural in fresco, Music, inspired by folk music, for the Music Conservatory in Mexico City (1933; now Ministerio del Patrimonio Nacional). Only once did he make a political statement, in the mural Revolution (1938; Mexico City, Mus. N. Cult.). He defined his aesthetic beliefs in Nature and the Artist, the Work of Art and the Observer (2.95×13.28 m, 1943; Northampton, MA, Smith Coll. Mus. A.) and carried out a considerable number of highly decorative works in which he expressed his thoughts on the history of Mexico, for example in the important mural Birth of our Nationality (1952; Mexico City, Pal. B.A.). He interpreted the ancient culture and religious myths of the Mexican Indians in various ways: Day and Night (vinyl on masonite, 1954; Mexico City, Sanborn's Casa Azulejos) and Duality (vinyl on canvas, 1963–4; Mexico City, Mus. N. Antropol.). Abroad he carried out murals with themes taken from history or Classical mythology, such as the first version of America (vinyl on canvas, 1955; Houston, TX, N Bank). He made two versions of Prometheus (both vinyl on canvas, 1957, Río Piedras, U. Puerto Rico; and 1958, Paris, UNESCO). Tamayo was also important as a printmaker, beginning in the 1920s with woodcuts, such as the Expressionist-influenced Virgin of Guadalupe (1930; New Haven, CT, Yale U. A.G.). In the late 1950s he began to produce colour lithographs, such as the portfolio entitled Apocalypse de St Jean (1959) and Man with Sombrero (1964), using the medium to create an equivalent to the lyrical colour and sensuous surfaces of his paintings. From the mid-1970s, in prints such as Personage, Moon and Star (1975; see 1976 exh. cat., no. 87), he devised innovative mixed technique procedures that exploited a remarkable range of textural effects. Tamayo also worked as a sculptor, modelling in clay, casting pieces in bronze and designing monumental iron sculptures such as Homage to the Sun (h. 27 m, 1979; Monterrey, Nue. León, Alcaldía), Germ (h. 15 m, 1980; Mexico City, U. N. Autónoma) and Conquest of Space (1983; San Francisco, CA, Int. Airport), all of which give ample proof of his creativity.

Mexican

20th century

bones

moon

dogs

rocks

animals

oil paintings

paintings (visual works)

paintings

oil on canvas

77 cm (H) x 102 cm (W)

Museum of Modern Art

repository

165.42

accession

New York, New York

© Museum of Modern Art, New York. Licensed for educational use via Scholars Resource: Davis Art Images

© Rufino Tamayo

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