- Title
- Study for America (Estudio para América)
- Date Made
- 1955
- Medium
- Watercolor or gouache on paper
- Dimensions
- 18 × 54 1/2 in. (45.7 × 138.4 cm)
- Accession Number
- AC1997.LWN.83
- Collecting Area
- Latin American Art
- Curatorial Notes
In addition to easel painting, Rufino Tamayo created several allegorical murals. Study for America (Estudio de América) is a preparatory drawing for a mural commissioned by the Bank of the Southwest in Houston in 1954. The fragmentation of the figures recalls Picasso's Guernica, a work that Tamayo saw in New York in 1938. Lying across the bottom of the composition is America, represented as a nude woman flanked by a fish and a plant, symbols of the bounty of the continent. From her body spring two embracing women—one white, the other dark—as emblems of the racial and cultural makeup of America. The white figure next to a cross symbolizes Western culture. The darker figure stands for the Indian race and is shown next to the head of the Aztec god Quetzalcóatl.
Ilona Katzew, 2008
- 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. November 15, 2024–April 24, 2025
- Rufino Tamayo: Innovation and Experimentation. November 15, 2024–April 24, 2025
