MEXICO: Mexico City's Tamayo Contemporary Art Museum inaugurates a retrospective exhibition honouring Mexican Painter Rufino Tamayo

Record ID: 303527

  • Title: MEXICO: Mexico City's Tamayo Contemporary Art Museum inaugurates a retrospective exhibition honouring Mexican Painter Rufino Tamayo
  • Date: 25th October 2007
  • Summary: PHOTO STILL OF RUFINO TAMAYO
  • Embargoed: 9th November 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Mexico
  • Country: Mexico
  • Reuters ID: LVA8DD4H4D3VCQ52QN8KO068OKT2
  • Story Text: A Rufino Tamayo retrospective exhibition will start on Friday (October 26) at Mexico City's Tamayo Contemporary Art Museum, intending to offer a contemporary reinterpretation of one of Mexico's greatest artists from the 20th century.
    In two rooms, 90 pieces will go on display, in an exhibition titled "Tamayo Reinterpreted," including some on loan from collections in Mexico, United States, Belgium, France, Japan and Norway. Some will be exposed to the public after being strictly guarded for decades by private collectors.
    The exhibition is organised by the Tamayo Museum and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in California and sponsored by BBVA Bancomer.
    The exhibition will offer a journey through various stages of the artists' work spanning more than 70 years, developed in Mexico, New York and Paris. Special emphasis will be placed on art created in the 1940s and 1950s, where Tamayo developed a personal style, which set him apart from the rest.
    Tamayo's painting was influenced by Mexico's pre-hispanic roots and popular traditions, using lavish light and colour. He was born in 1899 in the city of Oaxaca and studied at Mexico City's School of Plastic Arts run by the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico). His early work was inspired by the French impressionist painter Cézanne and later by Braque - although his style was loose and lyrical, defined by the exuberant use of colour.
    His art differed from that of the "three greats," Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco, who are generally associated to social realism - influenced by politics. Tamayo's art was based on absolute freedom, which the artist defined as poetic realism.
    In the 1940s, Tamayo lived in New York and travelled to Europe for the first time where he exhibited his work in London, Paris and Rome.
    Surrealism, futurism and cubism interested him. He also analyses the indigenous physiognomy in his work.
    "Tamayo's concerns during 70 years and 15 years from his death, are concerns that still exist. War, man in the universe, life in general. It's something that people can appreciate, in a very direct way through his work," said the Director of the Tamayo Museum, Ramiro Martinez.
    After the Mexican Revolution, from 1910 - 1917, he explored the Mexican character and nationalism, touching upon politics and socialism, although his art was strictly lyrical. He was criticized by the "three greats,"
    for his lack of commitment towards creating social and political changes and for betraying the Mexican Revolution. He emigrated to New York, where he found the freedom to express his esthetic art and found recognition.
    "Tamayo is a great artist, present in many collections, in different parts of the world and he represents Mexico in the highest esthetic level, in the most important museums in the world," said exhibition curator, Juan Carlos Pereda.
    In the mid-sixties, Tamayo developed an abstract style, showing the human condition and exploring life and the certainty of death. He died in 1991.
    A Rufino Tamayo 1970 painting called "Los Tres Personajes,"
    which was stolen 20 years ago and found by a passer-by in a New York rubbish bin, could fetch up to 1 million U.S. dollars at Sotheby's auction house next month.
    The exhibition is scheduled to run until January 20, 2008.
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