Personaje Blanco (White Person)
A striking example of Rufino Tamayo's mastery of printmaking, this richly textured etching and aquatint presents an enigmatic, abstracted human figure rendered in luminous whites and deep, velvety tones. The incorporation of carborundum lends the surface a distinctive granular quality, amplifying the contrast between light and shadow that defines the mysterious central presence. Tamayo's signature blend of pre-Columbian sensibility and modernist expression transforms a simple figure into a powerful, almost mythological presence on the page.
- Medium
- Etching and aquatint in colours with carborundum, on Guarro paper, the full sheet,
- Location
- Phillips, Salt Lake City, UT
- Spotted At
- Auction House · PhillipsView on map
🔨 Auction Lot
Evening & Day Editions
June 9, 2016
Spotted works by Rufino Tamayo
Artists in conversation
Francisco Toledo
Mexican · b. 1940
Toledo was a master printmaker who combined pre-Columbian imagery with modernist abstraction in etchings and aquatints rich with textural depth and enigmatic figurative forms, sharing Tamayo's Latin American sensibility and intimate relationship with printmaking techniques.
José Luis Cuevas
Mexican · b. 1931
Cuevas created deeply expressive, abstracted human figures in printmaking that carry the same brooding, enigmatic mood and strong contrast between light and dark, with a similarly modernist yet culturally rooted Mexican identity embedded in every mark.
Leonard Baskin
American · b. 1922
Baskin produced powerful etching and aquatint works featuring monumental, abstracted human figures with granular textural surfaces and dramatic tonal contrasts between luminous whites and deep velvety shadows that closely mirror the visual language of this specific piece.
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