Rufino Tamayo and the ecstasy of color, 41 years later

The Museo de Arte Moderno devoted to Rufino Tamayo his first major retrospective in four decades, and the subtitle is no overstatement: his thing was color pushed to its limit. The show traces how the Oaxacan stepped away from the muralism of his time to build a language of his own, closer to matter and myth than to slogan. Works such as Man and Woman with Hat, in pastel, distill that search: essential figures, a vibrant palette, nothing superfluous. It is a fine entry point to one of the giants of twentieth-century Mexico. ArtGuide walks you through it piece by piece.