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Collections

Rufino Tamayo
Trembling Woman (Mujer temblorosa)1974

Not on view
Vertical print with a deep crimson ground and a large, loosely human black figure at center, surrounded by scattered ink splatter across the entire surface

Rufino Tamayo, Trembling Woman (Mujer temblorosa), 1974, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA

Artist or Maker
Rufino Tamayo
Title
Trembling Woman (Mujer temblorosa)
Date Made
1974
Medium
Lithograph
Dimensions
29 1/2 × 21 1/4 in. (74.93 × 53.97 cm)
Credit Line
The Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art
Accession Number
AC1997.LWN.3363
Classification
Prints
Collecting Area
Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes

While Rufino Tamayo admired the work and especially the technical contributions of Abstract Expressionist artists such as Jackson Pollock (1912–1956), he critiqued the movement for failing to build a connection between the work of art and the viewer. For Tamayo, it was important for works of art to be part of a shared human experience and to be understood, a quality he defined as “humanism.” In Trembling Woman Tamayo invokes Pollock’s signature drips in the lithographic medium to add an emotional or psychological element to the physical form of the figure as she starts to dematerialize into the textured splashes of ink around her.

The lower left corner of the lithograph is embossed with the logo of the Taller de Gráfica Mexicana (Mexican Graphic Arts Workshop) in Mexico City. Trembling Woman is the first print that Tamayo made at the Taller, working closely with the workshop over the next several years to explore further ways to incorporate texture and volume into printmaking.


For more information see the catalogue entry by Rachel Kaplan in Rufino Tamayo: The Essential Figure, 2019, pp. 42–43.

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.
Selected Exhibition History
  • Rufino Tamayo: Innovation and Experimentation. December 21, 2019 - July 11, 2020
  • Rufino Tamayo: Innovation and Experimentation. May 3, 2024 - May 27, 2024
  • Rufino Tamayo: Innovation and Experimentation. November 15, 2024–April 24, 2025
Copyright
Art © Tamayo Heirs/ Mexico/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

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