Curator’s Travel Journal: In Rufino Tamayo’s Footsteps

Tamayo

SAAM's Latino art curator, E. Carmen Ramos reviewing books, photos, and scrapbooks from the period when Tamayo was affiliated with the Galería de Arte Mexico (1935 to early 1950s).

A photograph of Carmen Ramos by Ross Whitaker
E. Carmen Ramos
Former Curator of Latinx Art
March 25, 2016

E. Carmen Ramos, curator of Latino Art at SAAM is currently in Mexico to research her upcoming exhibition on the 20th-century Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo's lengthy residence and production in New York City, Tamayo: The New York Years. This is the first in a series of posts Carmen is writing from Mexico. Stay tuned for more updates from the road. Read all of Carmen's notes from her research trip.

The first place my research assistant, Beth Shook, and I visited was the archives of the Galería de Arte Mexico, the first private gallery in Mexico that opened its doors in 1935. Led famously by Inés Amor, the gallery represented the major artists of Mexico and was a center for modern art. Amor was Rufino Tamayo's representative in Mexico (Tamayo was represented by the Valentine Gallery in New York) and kept great records about her artists, clients and sales. One surprise of our visit was to learn how a vast majority of her clients were from the United States. This was to such an extent that often her gallery's paraphernalia was both in English and Spanish.

View works of art by Tamayo in SAAM's collection.

Next stop: the Museo Nacional de Arte

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