A Gay-Oriented Collection of Art Works, Literary Quotes, Songs, Films, and Male Images. Please be aware thet there is mature content on this blog. Information and links to sources will be provided unless unknown. Enjoy your visit.
Three Works by Rufino Tamayo
The top image is a lithograph entitled “Perro / Dog”, 1973, from a series of 15. The middle image is an oil painting entitled “El Comedor de Sandias / The Watermelon Eater”, 1941, one of many works Tamayo did on the subject. The bottom image is an oil on canvas, painted on the eve of the United States entry into World War One, entitled “Animals”, 1941, now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Rufino Tamayo, :Dia y Noche”, (Night and Day), Oil on Canvas, 1953, Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Mexico City
Rufino Tamayo, along with other muralists such as Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros, represented the twentieth century in their native country of Mexico. After the Mexican Revolution, Tamayo devoted himself to creating a distinct identity in his work. He expressed what he envisioned as the traditional Mexico and eschewed the overt political art of such contemporaries as José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, Oswaldo Guayasamin and David Alfaro Siqueiros. He disagreed with these muralists in their belief that the revolution was necessary for the future of Mexico but considered, instead, that the revolution would harm Mexico.
Tamayo expanded the technical and aesthetic possibilities of the graphic arts by developing a new medium which they named Mixografia. This technique is a unique fine art printing process that allows for the production of prints with three-dimensional texture. It not only registered the texture and volume of Rufino Tamayo’s design but also granted the artist freedom to use any combination of solid materials in its creation. Rufino Tamayo was delighted with the Mixografia process and created some 80 original Mixographs. One of their most famous Mixografia is titled “Dos Personajes Atacados por Perros” (Two Characters Attacked by Dogs).
Graphic Work by Rufino Tamayo
Rufino Tamayo’s legacy in the history of art lies in his oeuvre of original graphic prints in which he cultivated every technique. Rufino Tamayo’s graphic work, produced between 1925 and 1991, includes woodcuts, lithographs, etchings and “Mixografia” prints. With the help of Mexican painter and engineer Luis Remba, Tamayo expanded the technical and aesthetic possibilities of the graphic arts by developing a new medium which they named Mixografia.
This technique is a unique fine art printing process that allows for the production of prints with three-dimensional texture. It not only registered the texture and volume of Rufino Tamayo’s design but also granted the artist freedom to use any combination of solid materials in its creation. Rufino Tamayo was delighted with the Mixografia process and created some 80 original Mixographs. One of their most famous Mixografia is titled Dos Personajes Atacados por Perros (Two Characters Attacked by Dogs).
Rufino Tamayo, “Perro Aullando (Dog Howling)”, 1960, Lithograph, 50 x 65.5 cm, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco
There are some dogs which, when you meet them, remind you that, despite thousands of years of manmade evolution, every dog is still only two meals away from being a wolf. These dogs advance deliberately, purposefully, the wilderness made flesh, their teeth yellow, their breath a-stink, while in the distance their owners witter, “He’s an old soppy really, just poke him if he’s a nuisance,” and in the green of their eyes the red campfires of the Pleistocene gleam and flicker…
-Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
Rufino Tamayo, “Mujer con Sandia”, 1950, Color Lithograph, Private Collection
Rufino Tamayo was an artist of Zapotec descent living in Mexico at the beginning of the 20th century. Though he fraternized with Diego Rivera and the famous Mexican muralists, their styles were too large and political for his tastes—he preferred more intimate art.
In the 1920s, Tamayo moved to New York City, where he was deeply influenced by modern art movements, especially the work of Henri Matisse, whom he met at a party.. He also taught Helen Frankenthaler while she attended The Dalton School.