U1980.3.57
Title
U1980.3.57
Creator
Rufino Tamayo (Mexican, 1899-1991)
Date
1959
Label
Mujer India (Indian Woman), 1959
Rufino Tamayo (Mexican, 1899-1991)
Color lithograph on Arches paper
Gift of Henry Hecht, Jr. WL’63, U1980.3.57
A native of Oaxaca in Southern Mexico, Rufino Tamayo was a Mexican painter and printmaker of Zapotec heritage, who was opposed to the political activities of artist contemporaries like Siqueiros and Rivera. Instead, he turned to his traditional Mexican roots for inspiration, synthesizing primitivism with his interest in modernist forms of Cubism and Surrealism. By the 1940s, he was breaking the figure into fragments, focusing on geometry and color abstraction to heighten the intensity of the image. In this print of the Indian Woman, his color choice references house paint colors that were used by villagers. Tamayo describes them as “very cheap colors, the only ones the people can afford." This synthesis of old and new marks Tamayo's work.
“Art is a means of expression that must be understood by everybody, everywhere. It grows out of the earth, the textures of our lives, and our experience.” Rufino Tamayo
Rufino Tamayo (Mexican, 1899-1991)
Color lithograph on Arches paper
Gift of Henry Hecht, Jr. WL’63, U1980.3.57
A native of Oaxaca in Southern Mexico, Rufino Tamayo was a Mexican painter and printmaker of Zapotec heritage, who was opposed to the political activities of artist contemporaries like Siqueiros and Rivera. Instead, he turned to his traditional Mexican roots for inspiration, synthesizing primitivism with his interest in modernist forms of Cubism and Surrealism. By the 1940s, he was breaking the figure into fragments, focusing on geometry and color abstraction to heighten the intensity of the image. In this print of the Indian Woman, his color choice references house paint colors that were used by villagers. Tamayo describes them as “very cheap colors, the only ones the people can afford." This synthesis of old and new marks Tamayo's work.
“Art is a means of expression that must be understood by everybody, everywhere. It grows out of the earth, the textures of our lives, and our experience.” Rufino Tamayo
Credit Line
Museums at Washington & Lee University
Citation
Rufino Tamayo (Mexican, 1899-1991), “U1980.3.57,” Museums at Washington and Lee University: Online Exhibits, accessed May 17, 2024, https://exhibits-museums.omeka.wlu.edu/items/show/323.