1994.246.8 Rufino Tamayo, Dark Man, 1976

This color lithograph by Mexican printmaker Rufino Tamayo demonstrates the artist’s return to obscured, mysterious, and ominous abstracted figures in his work. Here Tamayo prints a perfectly symmetrical man, standing prominently in the center of the image. The vibrant orange-red background contrasts with the rusty, hardly decipherable, yet partitioned limbs of the man’s body. A darker ink is added throughout the print, applied generously and speckled unevenly, encompassing the man’s body in a cloud of smoke. The chaos suggests the figure teeters on the edge of dissolving into amorphousness.

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

Tamayo_Rufino: ULAN: 500024331

Mexico (nation): TGN: 7005560

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

male: AAT: 300189559

men (male humans): AAT: 300025928

standing: AAT: 300239500

abstract: AAT: 300108127

abstraction: AAT: 300056508

bodies (human and animal components): AAT: 300404640

symmetry: AAT: 300056249

arms (animal or human components): AAT: 300310201

legs (animal or human components): AAT: 300310192

geometric shape: AAT: 300263819

geometric motifs: AAT: 300009764

geometric abstraction: AAT: 300056509

lines (geometric concept): AAT: 300056279

form (composition concepts): AAT: 300056272

curves (geometric figures): AAT: 300378887

linear forms: AAT: 300234452

color (perceived attribute): AAT: 300056130

red (color): AAT: 300126225

orange (color): AAT: 300126734

black (color): AAT: 300130920

white (color): AAT: 300129784

background: AAT: 300056369

outlines (linear form): AAT: 300124267

contrast: AAT: 300260079

shadows: AAT: 300056036

brush strokes: AAT: 300185434

ink: AAT: 300015012

splatter (spatter / speckled / printing techniques): AAT: 300254788

clouds: AAT: 300343840

smoke (material): AAT: 300073252

chaos (concepts): AAT: 300247349

From 1994: Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Michael L. Rosenberg [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 Acquisition Record (dated December 21, 1994), 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 December 30, 1994), copy in Dallas Museum of Art Collections Records Object File, Confidential). Exceptions and other supporting documents are noted.