- Title
- Self-Portrait (Autorretrato)
- Date Made
- 1968
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 31 3/4 × 39 1/4 in. (80.6 × 99.7 cm)
- Accession Number
- AC1997.LWN.48
- Collecting Area
- Latin American Art
- Curatorial Notes
In this painting, Rufino Tamayo pushes the limits of representation and self-identification. The artist painted few self-portraits over his long career, although scholars have identified several works in which there are suggestions that Tamayo may have included depictions of himself. His earliest painted self- portraits, executed in 1927 and 1931, are closely cropped to his face, with the young painter staring out directly at the viewer. In this later self-portrait Tamayo has reduced the individualizing features of the subject. The artist represents himself only with his hand, one of his primary tools as an artist. To the right, a keyhole outline perhaps invokes a female presence. Here, Tamayo re-envisions the self-portrait through the use of color and simplified forms.
For more information see the catalogue entry by Rachel Kaplan in Rufino Tamayo: The Essential Figure, 2019, pp. 38–39.
- 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.
