1958
ink
From the collection of Museum of Modern Art
Untitled is a 1958 ink by Rufino Tamayo, held at Museum of Modern Art.
This painting shows a big, round face with a hat and a mustache. The colors are mostly blue, red, and yellow, but the background looks messy with splashes of color. The face is in the center, but the rest of the picture is fuzzy and hard to make out. The artist used a technique where ink is pressed onto a smooth stone, then transferred to paper—this is called lithography. It gives the painting a rough, almost sketchy feel. Check out lithography to see how this process works.
Rufino del Carmen Arellanes Tamayo was a Mexican painter of Zapotec heritage, born in Oaxaca de Juárez, Mexico. Tamayo was active in the mid-20th century in Mexico and New York, painting figurative abstraction with surrealist influences.
See the richer artist page
