1963.123.FA Rufino Tamayo, Woman, 1959

One of Rufino Tamayo’s many color lithographs printed in Paris, this impression demonstrates the artist’s move from his traditional representative treatment of women to a highly abstracted female form, heavily influenced by Cubism. While working in Mexico, Tamayo began depicting female nudes with a matronly, indigenous, and allegorical identity. Here and in a series of editions prepared and printed in New York after the war, Tamayo embraces the aesthetics of Cubist artists working in Paris—notably Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque—half a century after the inception of the movement. In this lithograph, a woman’s long arm curves across her body, fist clenched. Her femininity, however, is not lost within Tamayo’s abstraction, but rather heightened by the delicate curves of her limbs and the grainy pastels of the interior in which she sits.

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

Paris (France): TGN: 7008038

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

female: AAT: 300189557

women (female humans): AAT: 300025943

busts (figure): AAT: 300047457

abstract: AAT: 300108127

abstraction: AAT: 300056508

bodies (human and animal components): AAT: 300404640

nude: AAT: 300189568

sitting (seated): AAT: 300263970

interior spaces: AAT: 300078790

hands (animal or human components): AAT: 300310193

arms (animal or human components): AAT: 300310201

bald (hairstyle): DMA 

symmetry: AAT: 300056249

plane figures: AAT: 300159060

planes (mathematics): AAT: 300055640

geometric shape: AAT: 300263819

geometric motifs: AAT: 300009764

geometric abstraction: AAT: 300056509

lines (geometric concept): AAT: 300056279

circles (plane figures): AAT: 300055627

form (composition concepts): AAT: 300056272

curves (geometric figures): AAT: 300378887

linear forms: AAT: 300234452

background: AAT: 300056369

outlines (linear form): AAT: 300124267

contour: AAT: 300056263

impressions (prints): AAT: 300178549

influence: AAT: 300055860

Cubist: AAT: 300021495

editions: AAT: 300121294

New York (New York/United States): TGN: 7007567

violence: AAT: 300192799

wars: AAT: 300055314

battles: AAT: 300185692

revolution: AAT: 300055312

model (concepts / creative process): AAT: 300247279

Picasso_Pablo: ULAN: 500009666

Braque_Georges: ULAN: 500025200

Until 1961: Marvin Small, Fort Lee, New Jersey [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]

1961-1963: Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts, gift of the above [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]

From 1963: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Foundation for the Arts Collection, gift of Marvin Small, transferred from the above, May 30, 1963 [1], [6], [7], [8]

[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 Jacob D. Weintraub, New Art Center Gallery, New York, to Douglas MacAgy, Director of the Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts (dated November 14, 1961, 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 letter from Douglas MacAgy, Director of the Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts, to Marvin Small (dated November 16, 1961, copy in Dallas Museum of Art Collections Records Object File, Confidential). Exceptions and other supporting documents are noted.

[4] The main source for this provenance is letter from Jacob D. Weintraub, New Art Center Gallery, New York, to Douglas MacAgy, Director of the Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts (dated November 28, 1961, copy in Dallas Museum of Art Collections Records Object File, Confidential). Exceptions and other supporting documents are noted.

[5] The main source for this provenance is Deed of Gift (dated November 16, 1961), copy in Dallas Museum of Art Collections Records Object File, Confidential). Exceptions and other supporting documents are noted.

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

[7] The Foundation for the Arts is a non-profit corporation created as a title-holding entity to serve the people of Dallas but to operate independently of the City. The Dallas Museum of Art (at its own cost) is responsible for the care, storage, insurance, conservation and maintenance of the collection, and agrees to maintain the highest museum standards in the management and handling of the Foundation’s collection. The title to all works of art purchased or otherwise acquired by the Foundation for the Arts is retained by the Foundation.

[8] Pursuant to the April 19, 1963 Agreement of Merger between the Dallas Association and the Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts (DMCA), the collection of the Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts was transferred to the Foundation for the Arts.