Sin título

The present work, though more abstract than some of his later production, reflects the artist's preference for merging both the natural and the fantastic. Like his predecessor, Rufino Tamayo (1899-1991), Toledo often uses a multitude of monochromatic variations with the purpose of affecting the relationships among the different elements represented and enhancing the theatricality of the composition. Here, deep gradations of red aim to express, through an apparent simplicity, qualities that can only be understood and felt by the senses. Sin título alludes to neither a specific theme, nor to an obvious relationship between the elements illustrated. Its depiction is an act of an imagination as ancient as the ability of man to express his dreams, fears, myths, and passions on a painted surface.
Toledo is widely recognized as Mexico's greatest living artist, the heir of a pictorial tradition embedded in ancestral notions of mythology and symbolism rooted in his native Oaxaca. His body of work is characterized by the diversity of the mediums employed and the superb technique utilized in each of them. Toledo is, by all standards, a master engraver, photographer and painter, who in many works incorporates the intricate qualities of paint and sand to create some of the most textural surfaces on canvas.