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Collections

Rufino Tamayo
Personages with Birds (Personajes con pájaros)1988

Not on view
Lithograph with granular texture, stylized brick-red humanoid figure with raised fists on a dark ochre-brown ground, flanked by faint shadowy forms
Artist or Maker
Rufino Tamayo
Title
Personages with Birds (Personajes con pájaros)
Date Made
1988
Medium
Mixografía® print on handmade paper
Dimensions
43 5/8 × 35 1/4 in. (110.8 × 89.53 cm)
Credit Line
The Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art
Accession Number
AC1997.LWN.3394
Classification
Prints
Collecting Area
Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes

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.


Personages with Birds (Personajes con pájaros) was printed by the Taller de Gráfica Mexicana in Mexico City.

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. December 21, 2019 - July 11, 2020
  • Rufino Tamayo: Innovation and Experimentation. May 3, 2024 - May 27, 2024
  • Rufino Tamayo: Innovation and Experimentation. May 3, 2024 - May 27, 2024
  • Rufino Tamayo: Innovation and Experimentation. November 15, 2024–April 24, 2025
  • Rufino Tamayo: Innovation and Experimentation. November 15, 2024–April 24, 2025