1951.104 Rufino Tamayo, Nude, 1931

Rufino Tamayo’s Desnudo (Nude) exemplifies the artist’s treatment of the painted female body. In this alternative to the modern, Western nude, Tamayo paints from the back a reclining female looking out toward a mountainous landscape. Just as the tonal and chromatic range of this painting is muted, the identity and location of the sitter is likewise obscured. The artist employs the aesthetic and iconography of the post-Revolutionary Mexican School, avoiding the controversial subject matter preferred by his contemporaries. Further, without marrying this scene to Mexico or Mexicanism, Tamayo teeters between portrait and landscape, interior and exterior, urban and rural, and domestic and exotic. One finds nuances of Mexico and its population in this modified salon nude and the heavy influence of the artist’s life in 20th-century Mexico.

Erin Piñon, Label text, 2016.

Tamayo_Rufino: ULAN: 500024331

Mexico (nation): TGN: 7005560

Mexico City (Mexico): TGN: 7007227

oil paint: AAT: 300015050

canvas: AAT: 300014078

painting (visual works): AAT: 300033618

oil paintings (visual works): AAT: 300033799

abstract: AAT: 300108127

abstraction: AAT: 300056508

figures (representations): AAT: 300189808

human figures: AAT: 300404114

female: AAT: 300189557

women (female humans): AAT: 300025943

nude: AAT: 300189568

reclining: AAT: 300380165

bodies (human and animal components): AAT: 300404640

nude: AAT: 300189568

nudity (culture-related concepts): AAT: 300262617

linear forms: AAT: 300234452

mountains: AAT: 300008795

landscapes (environments): AAT: 300008626

landscapes (representations): AAT: 300015636

iconography: AAT: 300055859

subjects (content of works): AAT: 300404126

contrast: AAT: 300260079

duality (concepts): DMA

portrait: AAT: 300015637

interior spaces: AAT: 300078790

urban (culture related concepts): AAT: 300379515

rural areas: AAT: 300229355

Pre-Columbian (American): AAT: 300016619

population (demographics): AAT: 300055417

human (culture): AAT: 300393250

humans (homo sapiens species): AAT: 300265711

culture: AAT: 300055768

model (concepts / creative process): AAT: 300247279

salon paintings: AAT: 300310121

influence: AAT: 300055860

animals (Animalia kingdom): AAT: 300249395

dogs (animals): AAT: 300250130

sleeping: AAT: 300375130

bottles: AAT: 300045627

brick (clay product): AAT: 300010463

fruit (plant components): AAT: 300011868

banana (fruit): AAT: 300266434

identity: AAT: 300257052

Until 1951: Galleria de Arte Mexicana, Mexico City [Ines Amor, dealer] [1], [2]

From 1951: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas Art Association Purchase [1], [2], [3]

[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 letter from Jerry Bywaters, Director of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, to Ines Amor, Galleria de Arte Mexicana, Mexico City (dated October 19, 1951, copy in Dallas Museum of Art Collections Records Object File, Confidential). Exceptions and other supporting documents are noted.

[3] The Dallas Art Association is the predecessor to the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. The name was abandoned in 1970. Works from this collection were transferred to the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. The name of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, founded in 1933, changed to the Dallas Museum of Art in 1983.