Rufino Tamayo (1899-1991)
Rufino Tamayo (1899-1991)

El circo

Details
Rufino Tamayo (1899-1991)
Tamayo, R. (Mexico)
El circo
signed and dated 'Tamayo 38' lower right
oil on canvas
17.5/8 x 23.5/8in. (44.8 x 60cm.)
Painted in 1938
Provenance
Valentine Gallery, San Francisco
Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York
Exhibited
San Francisco, San Francisco Museum of Art, Rufino Tamayo, June 1945, n.n.

Lot Essay

Tamayo's career was most successfully launched in 1929 with his exhibition at the Galera de Arte Moderno in Mexico City. During the 1930's, Tamayo further developed and created a personalized palette truer to the exaltation of his Mexican heritage. Between 1926 and 1938 he painted a great number of oil and gouache works revealing a freer more lyrical inspiration that also responded to his interest in Mexican themes and myths.

El circo is comparable in form and style to the artist's Naturaleza muerta con helado, also from 1938. Both pieces play with a limited palette of variegated browns along with hints of blue and white. In El circo, these are brushed onto the canvas thinly and smoothly, appearing to sink into the canvas in a fresco-like manner. This method of painting renders the surface with a special quality of depth that is further reinforced by the colors rarely used in full intensity.

More from The Latin American Sale

View All
View All