Rufino Tamayo

(Mexican, 1899 - 1991)

“Can you believe that, to say that ours is the only path when the fundamental thing in art is freedom!
In art there are millions of paths, as many paths there are artists.”
— Rufino Tamayo

Rufino Tamayo was a Mexican 20th century artist with a distinct identity in his work. His style was largely figurative abstraction with Surrealist influences that reflected his appreciation for Mexican culture and history.

Rufino was born in Oaxaca, Mexico in August of 1899 to a seamstress mother and a shoemaker father. When Rufino was 12, he suffered the loss of his mother to tuberculosis, after which he moved to Mexico City to live with his aunt. His art studies began at the Faculty of Arts and Design at San Carlos in 1917, where he experimented with Cubism, Impressionism, and Fauvism. Tamayo later took drawing courses at the Academy of Art at San Carlos until dissatisfaction led him to independent studies. Between 1921 and 1926, he worked as the head of the department of Ethnographic Drawings at the National Museum of Archaeology, where he developed an interest in pre-Columbian art. He moved to New York City in 1926, where he spent much of his artistic career.

In New York, he met and experienced the profound works of artists like Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Henri Matisse. These artists inspired his Cubist and Surrealist style, which he preferred over the political rhetoric of Mexican muralists who dominated the art scene after the Mexican Revolution. Contrary to beliefs of his Mexican contemporaries like Rivera or Orozco, Tamayo viewed the Revolution as only harmful to Mexico, and was often characterized as a “traitor” to the political cause. He returned to Mexico in 1929, and by the 1930s, his popularity began to grow in the Mexican scene after a few solo shows received high praise and media coverage.

In 1935, Tamayo was chosen alongside artists Orozco, Siqueiros, and others to represent his work in the first American Artists’ Congress in New York. By this time, he married his wife, Olga, and together they made New York their primary residence for almost 15 years. Here, he had his first show at the Valentine Gallery, and he would create many of his most significant works during this period. For a time, Tamayo instructed abstract expressionist Helen Frankenthaler at the Dalton School. Tamayo’s first major retrospective was held at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City in 1948. By 1949, Tamayo and his wife relocated to Paris for the following decade, until returning to Mexico permanently. In 1959, Tamayo founded the Museo Rufino Tamayo in his hometown of Oaxaca.

Tamayo’s Mexican heritage remained tightly intertwined with his style and influences. He favored the use of fewer colors rather than many, perhaps influenced by fellow Mexican artist Maria Izquierdo, whom he resided with for a time. His color palette was dynamic, often balancing rich jewel tones, and earthy vibrant hues with contrasting darks that stayed true to his Mexican environment. In addition to his unique perspective on color, Tamayo’s legacy lies in an incredible oeuvre of mixed media and printed works. He helped develop a new medium of printing termed “Mixografia,” which allows for the production of prints with three-dimensional textures. Other printing methods used by Tamayo include woodcuts, lithographs, and etchings, and in addition to printmaking, he dabbled in bronze and iron sculpture.

Tamayo’s works have been displayed in museums around the world, achieving international recognition from Mexico to Spain. He designed murals for the National Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico and for UNESCO in Paris. Most of his murals were of women, and a large number of paintings were of his wife, Olga. He and his wife donated their lifelong collection of international and pre-Columbian art to the city of Oaxaca, and the Tamayo Contemporary Art Museum was opened in return. Tamayo completed his final painting in 1990 titled Luna y Sol. In the summer of 1991, the artist was admitted to Mexico City’s National Institute of Medical Sciences for respiratory and heart failure, and he died on June 24 of that year.

American Fine Art, Inc. is proud to feature the original works and limited editions of Rufino Tamayo. Visit our 12,000 sq. ft. showroom in Scottsdale, Arizona or call today. Our website is offered only as a limited place to browse or refresh your memory and is not a reflection of our current inventory. To learn more about collecting, pricing, value, or any other art information, please contact one of our International Art Consultants. We look forward to giving you the one on one attention you deserve when building your fine art collection. We hope you find our website helpful and look forward to seeing you in Scottsdale soon.