Venezuelan curator Corina Michelena provides an overview of the graphic work of Mexican painter Rufino Tamayo, pointing out the similarities and differences between the media of painting and prints in his work. Michelena describes Tamayo’s experiences with wood engraving, lithography, and metal printmaking techniques, and how he finally started working in the versatile techniques of collagraph and mixograph, whose textures Tamayo readily adapted to his visual language. Michelena expounds on those last two media, describing at length one of the works included in this show in Caracas, specifically the technique and use of color, texture, and form that it entails. The author affirms that this work demonstrates how Tamayo uses graphics for the sake of his visual arts exploration.

This text by Venezuelan curator Corina Michelena provides a concise overview of the graphic work of Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo (1899–1991), and in so doing presents an initial approach to the general matter of the painter-printmaker nexus. Michelena discusses the graphic techniques most important to Tamayo’s production: first wood engravings and then the techniques of collagraph and mixograph, the ones used in the works selected for the exhibition in Venezuela that Michelena curated—a show that like this text, was dedicated to the mature stage of Tamayo’s graphic work. Michelena begins the text with a reference to Tamayo’s first solo show, which took place in Mexico City in 1926. In it, the artist presented wood engravings along with paintings. On that basis, the curator makes a connection between the artist’s early work and the mature work exhibited at the exhibition, Tar Tac Tamayo. With the exception of a mixograph from 1974, all of the works in the show were collagraphs produced in 1980—chromatic and textural exercises that the text by Michelena makes accessible. 

For other texts on Rufino Tamayo, see the essay, “Rufino Tamayo” (ICAA digital archive doc. no. 1126453), the article, “Rufino Tamayo y los pintores cubanos: como soluciones al problema estético americano: José Gómez Sicre ofreció las soluciones anoche en conferencia que dictó en el Museo de Bellas Artes” (doc. no. 770433), and the inteview, “¿Qué opina sobre la pintura europea?” (doc. no. 769922).