Red Torso (Torso rojo)

Art © Tamayo Heirs/ Mexico/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
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Red Torso (Torso rojo)

Mexico, 1981
Paintings
Oil with marble dust on canvas
71 1/4 × 49 in. (180.9 × 124.5 cm)
The Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art (AC1997.LWN.27)
Latin American Art
Not currently on public view

Curator Notes

In Red Torso Rufino Tamayo invokes the human figure through both its absence and its surrogates.

...

In Red Torso Rufino Tamayo invokes the human figure through both its absence and its surrogates. The back of an empty chair suggests that a sitter may have recently left the scene, or alternately offers the viewer a place to enter the composition and sit. However, as the chair’s seat is cut off (much like the cropped torso itself), such potential entrance is ultimately denied. The titular red torso of a female mannequin, elevated on a pedestal, mimics a human presence. A large oval floating over the torso’s shoulder suggests a ghostlike head as the legs seemingly grow into the pedestal. In implying the absent body parts, these geometric forms serve as visual cues for the viewer to mentally complete the figure.


For more information see the catalogue entry by Rachel Kaplan in Rufino Tamayo: The Essential Figure, 2019, pp. 60–61.
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Provenance

Bernard and Edith Lewin, Rancho Mirage, California; LACMA, 1997.

Bibliography

  • Kaplan, Rachel. Rufino Tamayo: The Essential Figure. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2019.

Exhibition history

  • Tamayo: A Modern Icon Reinterpreted Mexico City, Mexico, Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo, October 18, 2007 - January 16, 2008
  • Tamayo: A Modern Icon Reinterpreted Miami, FL, Miami Art Museum, June 21, 2007 - September 16, 2007
  • Tamayo: A Modern Icon Reinterpreted Mexico City, Mexico, Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo, October 18, 2007 - January 16, 2008
  • Tamayo: A Modern Icon Reinterpreted Miami, FL, Miami Art Museum, June 21, 2007 - September 16, 2007
  • Tamayo: A Modern Icon Reinterpreted Santa Barbara, CA, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, February 17, 2007 - May 27, 2007
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