newsfromsothebys201011

Rufino TAMAYO (1899-1991)

Dos Mujeres
Signed and dated 0-79 upper right, also titled in the reverse
Oil and sand on canvas, 95.3x129.5cm

Estimate US$350,000-450,000 (Sotheby's, NY, November 16th 2010, Lot 21)

Hombre de la Mirada Penetrante
Signed and dated 0-56, upper right
Oil and sand on canvas, 100.6x77.5cm

Estimate US$300,000-400,000 (Sotheby's, NY, November 16th 2010, Lot 61)

With his penetrating gaze Tamayo's subject questions our presence, as if we've interrupted his solid and unyielding existence. He sits tightly framed within a short, claustrophobic space which reflects Tamayo's preoccupation at the time with the overall condition of man. His concrete, heavy presence which is further underscored by his curved back points to the burdens with which we are weighted. Painted scarcely a decade after the war, Tamayo points here to the existential questions that concerned him at that time.

Provenance Collection of Mrs Vera da Costa Autrey (Sotheby's Parke Bernet, New York 18th, 19th and 20th Century Latin American Paitings, Drawings, Sculpture and Prints, December 2nd, 1981, Lot 35)

Cabezas
Signed and dated 0-66 upper left, titled on the reverse
Oil and sand on canvas, 46.6x60.4cm

Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium US$182,500 (Sotheby's, NY, November 16th 2010, Lot 125)
Estimate US$150,000-200,000

Esfera Flotante
Signed and dated 0-70 lower right
Oil and sand on canvas, 35.5x50.2cm

Estimate US$100,000-150,000 (Sotheby's, NY, November 16th 2010, Lot 15)

Rufino Tamayo, unlike the Mexican muralists, celebrated his art for aesthetics' sake and not as a vehicle to glorify the Mexican Revolution. Tamayo's formative visual lexicon from the 1920s and 1930s eventually evolved to his own vision of modernity that was imbued with his own sense of "Mexicanidad." While Rivera, Orozco and Siqueiros were celebrating the revolution in a monumental scale, Tamayo's preferred means of expression largely remained easel painting. As his oeuvre became increasingly abstract, Tamayo's sense of nonfiguration culminated in the late 1960s and into the 1970s where he became more focused on coloration and the application of heavy impasto.

Esfera flotante, painted at the height of his mature period, embodies the pure refinement that Tamayo sought in his pursuit of color abstraction. The overlapping rectangles are punctuated by a white orb, a device that frequents his paintings as early as the 1930s. In this canvas, however, the motif is free of any associations with either architecture or astronomical bodies, as in his Eclipse total painted in 1967.

Provenance a Private Collection, Aspen (Christie's, New York Latin American Paitings, Drawings and Sculpture, November 19th, 1991, Lot 5)