Semi-abstract painting of watermelon; oil on board; framed; signed and attr. Rufino Tamayo (Mexico, 1899-1991) on lower left corner; Mexican painter of Zapotec heritage, painting figurative abstraction with surrealist influences; dated 1986.

Tamayo spent many years of his career in New York City, first settling there from 1926 to 1928. He retained his ties to Mexico and returned there often, but the modern art he encountered in New York – especially the paintings of European artists Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Henri Matisse—profoundly influenced his work.

Tamayo reacted against the epic proportions and political rhetoric of the paintings of the Mexican muralists, who had dominated the country’s art production since the Mexican Revolution. Instead, he chose to address formal and aesthetic issues in easel paintings, fusing European styles such as Cubism and Surrealism with subject matter that often involved Mexican culture.

By the 1930s Tamayo had become a well-known figure in the Mexican art scene. He lived in New York again from 1936 to 1950. During this period the various styles of his paintings ranged from the stolid figures in Women of Tehuantepec (1939) to the expressive violence of the barking mongrels in Animals (1941). He often used vibrant colours and textured surfaces to depict his subjects (such as this lot featuring a stylized watermelon slice in symbolic or semiabstract modes.

Tamayo, who died in 1991, is widely considered by art experts as one of the four towering figures of Mexican 20th century art, along with Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco and David Siqueiros

15 by 11.5 in. (38.1 by 29.21 cm.)
PROVENANCE: Private collection, Toronto, ON