Background

Rufino Tamayo was born on August 25, 1899, in Oaxaca, Mexico. He was a son of Ignacio Arellanes and Florentina Tamayo.

At the age of twelve, after his parents’ death, Rufino relocated to his aunt, a wholesale fruit-seller, in Mexico City and helped her with the business for a while.

Education

Rufino Tamayo studied at the business school for a while. In 1915, he began his artistic training by attending the night classes in Mexico City.

Two years later, he entered the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas in San Carlos (National School of Visual Arts, currently in Mexico City) where he experimented with Cubism, Impressionism and Fauvism among other popular art movements. He also developed his skills at Roberto Montenegro’s workshop.

Disappointed by the School’s art program, the young artist decided to pursue his art studies on his own and left the institution in 1921.

Besides, Rufino Tamayo obtained two Honorary Doctorates – the first one from the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 1978, and the second from the University of Southern California seven years later.

Career

Rufino Tamayo began his professional career in 1921 at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City where he was an assistant of José Vasconcelos at the Department of Ethnographic Drawings and drew the pre-Columbian objects in the museum’s collection. It was here where Tamayo became fascinated by pre-Columbian culture, especially ceramics, and began to incorporate its elements in his early canvases depicting Mexican men and women. Soon, he was appointed a head of the Department.

The young artist had served at the museum until his first trip to New York City in 1926. The debut solo show of his artworks was organized the same year at the Weyhe Gallery. While in the United States, Rufino Tamayo’s art was influenced by surrealism and expressionism of European Modernism. He tried to join it with the elements from the Mexican culture.

Rufino Tamayo came back to Mexico in 1929 where he had his next solo exhibition. He tried himself as an educator and had taught as a professor at the School of Fine Arts for five years. The same period, the artist received his first mural commission from the National School of Music in Mexico City (Escuela Nacional de Música).

In 1936, Tamayo returned again to New York City, this time along with his wife. Two years after his arriving, he joined the teacher’s staff of the Dalton School. He had worked as a professor of painting for nine years and taught such students as Helen Frankenthaler. He also had served as a professor at the Brooklyn Museum since 1946. During this stint, the artist produced many of his most notable canvases which were demonstrated at the Valentine Gallery, Knoedler Gallery and Marlborough Gallery.

In 1948, the huge retrospective of Tamayo’s artworks was held at the Palace of Fine Arts (Palacio de Bellas Artes) in Mexico City.

Despite his popularity, the artist had to leave the country again because of his discordance with the adherents of the political art. So, in 1949, he relocated to Paris.

Rufino Tamayo travelled to Europe exploring the art of its countries. In 1950, he took part in the Venice Biennale which provided him with international recognition. He continued to work on many mural projects, including ‘Birth of Nationality’, ‘Mexico Today’ for the National Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City (1952-53) and ‘Prometheus Bringing Fire to Man’ for UNESCO in Paris (1958).

After the fifteen-years stint in France, the artist returned to Mexico and had lived there till the end of his days taking an active part at the cultural life of his homeland. So, in 1974, Tamayo established the Rufino Tamayo Museum of Pre-Hispanic Art in Oaxaca by gifting to the city a huge collection of pre-Columbian pieces of art. Seven years later, he donated his collection of international art to Mexico City. The donation initiated the creation of the Rufino Tamayo Museum of Contemporary Art in Mexico City. The most important Tamayo’s retrospectives of this period include the shows at the São Paulo Bienal of 1977 and at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York two years later.

During his career, Tamayo demonstrated his pieces of art in various galleries in the United States and Europe, such as the Naples Museum of Art, the Queen Sofía Museum in Madrid, Spain, and the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C. among others.

Rufino Tamayo produced his last painting a year before his death.

Achievements

• Rufino Tamayo was a talented artist who made a great contribution to the development of Mexican Art. Along with his colleagues Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and Jose Clemente Orozco, he made the Mexican art internationally popular.
  
  In collaboration with his colleague, the Mexican painter and engineer Luis Remba, Tamayo created the new art technique dubbed Mixografia which main principle was to join prints with three-dimensional textures.
  
  During his career, the artist accomplishments were marked by such prestigious awards as National Order of the Legion of Honour (twice), the Mexican National Prize for Arts and Sciences, the Belisario Domínguez Medal of Honor, the Spanish Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts and the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.
  
  In 1972, Gary Conklin produced a documentary movie dedicated to Tamayo’s personality and career.
  
  The artist’s heritage is nowadays included in the permanent collections of such art spaces like the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Tate Galleries and elsewhere.
  
  Rufino Tamayo’s painting titled ‘Troubadour’ ('Trovador') was purchased at Christie's in 2008 for $7,209,000.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Resting Women

  • Moon Dog

  • Couple of Children

  • Moon and Sun

  • Woman with Pineapple

  • The Great Galaxy

  • Empty Fruit Bowl

  • Children

  • Children Playing with Fire

  • Watermelons

  • Three People

  • Portrait of Olga

  • Watermelons

  • Children's Games

  • Woman in Gray

  • Man Sticking Out his Tongue

  • Celestial Bodies

  • The Woman with Red Mask

  • Friend of the Birds

  • The Troubadour

  • America

  • Man with Violin

  • Two Women

  • Homage to the Indian Race

  • A Personage in Interior

  • Evening Sun

  • Still Life

  • Salome

  • Cubist Portrait

  • Jackal

  • The Iron Cross (Gymnast)

  • Girl

• sculpture

  • Watermelons

  • Monolithic Head

  • Sidereal Figure

Religion

Roman Catholic

Views

Rufino Tamayo was against the perception of art from the political point of view accepted by José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, Oswaldo Guayasamin and David Alfaro Siqueiros.

Quotations: "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."

"As the number of colours we use decreases, the wealth of possibilities increases."

Membership

• Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios

  League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists , Mexico

  1935

• 

  American Academy of Arts and Sciences , United States

  1979

• 

  El Colegio Nacional

  National College of Mexico , Mexico

  1991

• 

  Royal Academy of Arts , United Kingdom

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• "If I could express with a single word what it is that distinguishes Tamayo from other painters, I would say without a moment's hesitation: Sun. For the sun is in all his pictures, whether we see it or not." Octavio Paz, a Mexican poet and diplomat

Interests

• Artists

  Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Henri Matisse

Connections

Rufino Tamayo was married to Olga Flores Rivas.

Father:

Ignacio Arellanes

Mother:

Florentina Tamayo

Spouse:

Olga Flores Rivas

mentor:

María Izquierdo

colleague:

Luis Remba

References

• Rufino Tamayo: the Sources of His Art
  1972
• Rufino Tamayo
  1974
• Rufino Tamayo
  1982
• Tamayo: a Modern Icon Reinterpreted
  2007