1982.137 Rufino Tamayo, Portrait of a Woman, 1969

Having returned from Paris to his ancestral Mexico, established painter, printmaker, and muralist Rufino Tamayo designed and executed a series of prints sharing a common theme: the female body. In this series, his skill in lithography, abstraction, and color application coalesces on paper to form a vibrantly savage study of the female form. Tamayo employs Cubism to abstract and flatten the pictorial plane and piece together features of his standing nude. The curved lines of the woman’s body are juxtaposed with the rigid construction of the interior space, specifically a closed window. Tamayo’s sharp contrast of color applied directly on the woman’s body denotes shadow and direction—a bold deviation from his earlier lithographs, which display women with their features completely obscured in a monochromatic shadow.

Erin Piñon, Tower Gallery: Latin American Art, Label text, 2017.

Tamayo_Rufino: ULAN: 500024331

Mexico (nation): TGN: 7005560

Oaxaca (state/Mexico): TGN: 7005591

Mexico City (Mexico): TGN: 7007227

color lithographs: AAT: 300041383

lithographs (planographic prints): AAT: 300041379

lithography: AAT: 300053271

chromolithographs: AAT: 300041384

chromolithography: AAT: 300053272

Mixografia (R) (embossed prints): AAT: 300265654

embossing (technique): AAT: 300053826

prints (visual works): AAT: 300041273

works on paper: AAT: 300189621

figures (representations): AAT: 300189808

human figures: AAT: 300404114

abstract: AAT: 300108127

abstraction: AAT: 300056508

nude: AAT: 300189568

female: AAT: 300189557

women (female humans): AAT: 300025943

standing: AAT: 300239500

windows: AAT: 300002944

houses: AAT: 300005433

interior spaces: AAT: 300078790

shoulders (animal or human components): DMA

arms (animal or human components): AAT: 300310201

color (perceived attribute): AAT: 300056130

blue (color): AAT: 300129361

red (color): AAT: 300126225

black (color): AAT: 300130920

bodies (human and animal components): AAT: 300404640

geometric shape: AAT: 300263819

geometric motifs: AAT: 300009764

geometric abstraction: AAT: 300056509

lines (geometric concept): AAT: 300056279

circular (shape): AAT: 300263827

triangular (polygonal): AAT: 300263833

triangles (polygons): AAT: 300009806

form (composition concepts): AAT: 300056272

curves (geometric figures): AAT: 300378887

linear forms: AAT: 300234452

outlines (linear form): AAT: 300124267

background: AAT: 300056369

ancestors: AAT: 300255718

painters (artists): AAT: 300025136

printmaking: AAT: 300131119

muralist (painter): AAT: 300025153

murals: AAT: 300182732

Mexican Muralist (movement): AAT: 300107850

series (groups): AAT: 300027349

theme: AAT: 300195523

studies (visual works): AAT: 300081053

Cubist: AAT: 300021495

plane figures: AAT: 300159060

planes (mathematics): AAT: 300055640

contrast: AAT: 300260079

shadows: AAT: 300056036

brush strokes: AAT: 300185434

portrait: AAT: 300015637

identity: AAT: 300257052

hairstyles: AAT: 300262903

buns (hair buns / hairstyles): DMA

From 1982: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, gift of Donald and Florence S. Lewis [1], [2], [3], [4]

[1] The main source for this provenance was existing information in TMS (in Dallas Museum of Art Digital Collections Records Object Files). Exceptions and other supporting documents are noted.  

[2] The main source for this provenance is Acquisition Record (dated December 29, 1982), copy in Dallas Museum of Art Collections Records Object File, Confidential). Exceptions and other supporting documents are noted.

[3] The main source for this provenance is Deed of Gift (dated January 05, 1983), copy in Dallas Museum of Art Collections Records Object File, Confidential). Exceptions and other supporting documents are noted.

[4] The name of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, founded in 1933, was changed to the Dallas Museum of Art in 1983.