Rufino Tamayo lithograph of Coyote, c1950

Lithograph: 21" x 16.25"
Mat: 26.25" x 21"
Signed lower left, Tamayo in pencil

Provenance: This work came out of storage unit in Ossining NY, that belonged to Dr. Gregory Siskind. He inherited the lifetime collection of art of the artist Stella Drabkin and her husband Dr. David L. Drabkin. The collection is large and extensive, including art by Stella Drabkin, Henry Moore, Rufino Tamayo, Lynn Ward, Adolf Dehn and others. These works were in private hands for 60 years.

Rufino Tamayo
(Source: Wiki) Rufino del Carmen Arellanes Tamayo (August 25, 1899 - June 24, 1991) 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.

Tamayo was born in Oaxaca, Mexico in 1899 to parents Manuel Arellanes and Florentina Tamayo. His mother was a seamstress and his father was a shoemaker. His mother died of tuberculosis 1911.

Tamayo's Zapotec heritage is often cited as an early influence.

After his mother's death he moved to Mexico City to live with his aunt, where he spent a lot of time working alongside her in the city's fruit markets. While there, he devoted himself to helping his family with their small business. However, in 1917 Tamayo's aunt enrolled him at Escuela Nacional de Artes Plasticas at San Carlos to study art. As a student, he experimented with and was influenced by Cubism, Impressionism and Fauvism, among other popular art movements of the time, but with a distinctly Mexican feel. Although Tamayo studied drawing at the Academy of Art at San Carlos as a young adult, he became dissatisfied and eventually decided to study on his own. That was when he began working for Jose Vasconcelos at the Department of Ethnographic Drawings (1921); he was later appointed head of the department by Vasconcelos.

Rufino Tamayo, along with other muralists such as Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros, represented the twentieth century in their native country of Mexico.[8] After the Mexican Revolution, Tamayo devoted himself to creating a distinct identity in his work. He expressed what he envisioned as the traditional Mexico and eschewed the overt political art of such contemporaries as José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, Oswaldo Guayasamín and David Alfaro Siqueiros. He disagreed with these muralists in their belief that the revolution was necessary for the future of Mexico but considered, instead, that the revolution would harm Mexico. In his painting, Ninos Jugando con Fuego (Children Playing with Fire, 1947), Tamayo shows two individuals being burnt by a fire they have created, a symbol of the Mexican people being injured by its own choice and action. Tamayo claimed, "We are in a dangerous situation, and the danger is that man may be absorbed and destroyed by what he has created". Due to his opinion, he was characterized by some as a traitor to the political cause. Tamayo came to feel that he could not freely express his art; he therefore decided in 1926 to leave Mexico and move to New York City. Prior to his departure, Tamayo organized a one-man show of his work in Mexico City where he was noticed for his individuality.The artist returned to Mexico in 1929 to have another solo show, this time being met with high praise and media coverage.

Rufino Tamayos legacy in the history of art lies in his oeuvre of original graphic prints in which he cultivated every technique. Rufino Tamayo's graphic work, produced between 1925 and 1991, includes woodcuts, lithographs, etchings and "Mixografia" prints. With the help of Mexican printer and engineer Luis Remba, Tamayo expanded the technical and aesthetic possibilities of the graphic arts by developing a new medium which they named Mixografia. This technique is a unique fine art printing process that allows for the production of prints with three-dimensional texture.[10] It not only registered the texture and volume of Rufino Tamayo's design but also granted the artist freedom to use any combination of solid materials in its creation. Rufino Tamayo was delighted with the Mixografia process and created some 80 original Mixographs. One of their most famous Mixografia is titled Dos Personajes Atacados por Perros (Two Characters Attacked by Dogs).

In 1935, Tamayo joined the Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios (LEAR). The LEAR was an organization in which Mexican artists could express through painting and writing their responses towards the revolutionary war and governmental policies then current in México. Although Tamayo did not agree with Siqueiros and Orozco, they were chosen along with four others to represent their art in the first American Artists' Congress in New York. Now married, Rufino and Olga had planned on staying in New York only for the duration of the event; however, they made New York their permanent home for the next decade and a half.[12]

In 1948, Tamayos first major retrospective was held at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. Although his positions remained controversial, his popularity was high. Uncomfortable with the continuing political controversy, Tamayo and Olga moved to Paris in 1949 where they remained for the next decade.[3]

Tamayo also enjoyed portraying women in his paintings. His early works included many nudes, a subject which eventually disappeared in his later career. However, he often painted his wife Olga, showing her struggles through color choices and facial expressions. The shared difficulties of painter and wife can be seen in the portrait Rufino and Olga, circa 1934, where the couple appears broken by life's obstacles.

Tamayo also painted murals, some of which are displayed inside Palacio Nacional de Bellas Artes opera house in Mexico City, such as Nacimiento de la nacionalidad (Birth of the Nationality, 1952).

Good condition overall