Rufino Tamayo created Personages with Birds (Personajes con pájaros) towards the end of his very prolific career, demonstrating themes and motifs that continued throughout the artist’s long life. Of the 358 prints listed in Tamayo’s catalogue raisonné, nearly three hundred feature the human figure and its parts. In Personages with Birds two figures raise their arms, conveying a sense of motion. Simple circles and straight lines suggest the eyes and nose of the person in the foreground, while alternating rectangles form the figureʼs abdomen. The subject in the back, however, bears no recognizable features and instead a single orange line emphasizes the figure’s verticality. Two birds accompany the people, though it is unclear whether they represent welcome companions or threats. The birds and double figures with raised arms—common throughout Tamayo’s career—hearken back to earlier works, such as his 1943 painting White Nude.

For more information see the catalogue entry by Rachel Kaplan in Rufino Tamayo: The Essential Figure, 2019, pp. 70–71.