Existing comment:
Tamayo: The New York Years
RUFINO TAMAYO (1899–1991), one of the most celebrated artists of the twentieth century, formed many of his ideas about art during his extended sojourns in New York City between 1926 and 1949. Tamayo came of age during the cultural renaissance that followed the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920). Like many of his Mexican contemporaries, he considered his country's indigenous and mestizo (racially mixed) heritage a defining element of national identity. Yet Tamayo's exposure to international modernism in New York, coupled with his firsthand study of pre-Columbian and Mexican folk art, led him to reject overtly politicized art, especially the muralism of Los tres grandes (the three greats) -- Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros -- in favor of his own synthesis of modernist styles and Mexican culture.
This exhibition is the first to consider how New York -- its sights, artists, critics, collectors, and art venues -- nurtured Tamayo's vision of modern Mexican art. In this context, he created an art that resisted clear narratives, emphasized the creative rather than political underpinnings of art making, and mined the ancient myths and forms of indigenous art to express the existential crisis of World War II. By the 1940s, his richly colored and abstracted compositions modeled an alternative "American" modernism that challenged social realism and dovetailed with a rising generation of abstract expressionists who were also seeking a visual language that fit their uncertain times. Tamayo: The New York Years reveals how a Mexican artist forged a new path in the modern art of the Americas and contributed to New York's dynamic cultural scene as the city was becoming a center of postwar art.
Tamayo: The New York Years is organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
We are especially grateful to His Excellency Gerónimo Gutiérrez-Fernández, the Mexican Ambassador to the United States, for serving as the honorary patron for the exhibition.
The Mexican Cultural Institute of Washington, DC, has provided invaluable advice and support.
The Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center, provided major support.
Additional generous contributions provided by:
The Honorable Aida Alvarez
Mrs. J. Todd Figi
Robert S. Firestone Foundation
Wolf Kahn and Emily Mason Foundation
William R. Kenan Jr. Endowment Fund
Sara Roby Foundation
Sam Rose and Julie Walters
Smithsonian Scholarly Studies Grant Program |