Existing comment:
Mandolins and Pineapples
1930
oil on canvas
The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Acquired 1930
Tamayo's densely arranged still life juxtaposes pineapples, tropical fruits associated with Latin America, and mandolins, instruments commonly represented in the still lifes of Picasso and other European modernists. Tamayo was briefly in New York in 1930 when this work was shown in the Mexican Arts exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There, Duncan Phillips, founder of the Phillips Collection, saw the painting and immediately purchased it for his Washington gallery, becoming the first prominent US art collector to acquire Tamayo's work. In a letter to Mexican-art promoter Frances Flynn Paine, Phillips wrote, "It seemed to me about the best [picture] in the Mexican show at the Metropolitan." |