Rufino Tamayo
Red Torso (Torso rojo)1981

Not on view

Oil painting of a red female torso sculpture on a gray pedestal inside a room with ochre and green walls, a circular wall mirror, and a dark wooden chair

Artist or Maker: Rufino Tamayo
Mexico, 1899-1991
Title: Red Torso (Torso rojo)
Date Made: 1981
Medium: Oil with marble dust on canvas
Dimensions: 71 1/4 × 49 in. (180.9 × 124.5 cm)
Credit Line: The Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art
Accession Number: AC1997.LWN.27
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes: 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.
Provenance: Bernard and Edith Lewin, Rancho Mirage, California; LACMA, 1997.
Selected Bibliography: Kaplan, Rachel. Rufino Tamayo: The Essential Figure. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2019.
Copyright: Art © Tamayo Heirs/ Mexico/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

Rufino Tamayo
Red Torso (Torso rojo)1981

Not on view

Artist or Maker: Rufino Tamayo
Mexico, 1899-1991
Title: Red Torso (Torso rojo)
Date Made: 1981
Medium: Oil with marble dust on canvas
Dimensions: 71 1/4 × 49 in. (180.9 × 124.5 cm)
Credit Line: The Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art
Accession Number: AC1997.LWN.27
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes: 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.
Provenance: Bernard and Edith Lewin, Rancho Mirage, California; LACMA, 1997.
Selected Bibliography: Kaplan, Rachel. Rufino Tamayo: The Essential Figure. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2019.