Rufino Tamayo
White Torso (Torso blanco)1978

Not on view

Embossed print on textured handmade paper, schematic human figure with quartered oval head and crossed arms, white raised lines on olive-tan ground, numbered 83/100

Embossed print on textured handmade paper, schematic human figure with a quartered circle for a head and crossed arms over the torso, rendered in pale raised lines against a tan ground, numbered 33/100 at lower left.

Artist or Maker: Rufino Tamayo
Title: White Torso (Torso blanco)
Date Made: 1978
Medium: Mixografía® print on handmade paper
Dimensions: 35 × 27 1/2 in. (88.9 × 69.85 cm)
Credit Line: The Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art
Accession Number: AC1997.LWN.3319
Classification: Prints
Collecting Area: Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes: White Torso is one of the earliest examples of a Mixografía print on handmade paper. Wet paper pulp was pressed onto an inked plate and then passed through the printing press. This innovative approach not only provided a stronger paper, but also the possibility of creating works of variable size and thickness—and the groundbreaking ability to produce a three-dimensional print. The rough, uncut edges of the paper, extending beyond the printed image, evidence this method of making the paper and impression simultaneously.

As Rufino Tamayo focused on the textures created by the ink and paper, he refined the subject of White Torso into a simple outline anchored by a vertical cross, with no differentiation in color or texture between the figure and the background. Without the stark white outlines, the figure would disappear, indistinguishable from its surroundings.

Rachel Kaplan, 2023
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.

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