Gallery to Exhibit Tamayo's La Perla

Mary-Anne Martin/Fine Art is proud to announce that it has acquired for sale the important painting by Rufino Tamayo, La Perla. Painted in 1950, this work is a watershed in the artist's oeuvre, summing up his magic and fantasy of the thirties and forties and heralding his concern with color and monumentality in the following decades. The subject matter is intriguing; a large Picasso-esque woman on whose neck is perched a cat, proffers a huge pearl to a small boy standing by. The painting is said to have been inspired by the 1947 film done in Mexico of John Steinbeck's famous novella The Pearl, which recounts the sad fate of a Mexican fisherman who finds a valuable treasure while diving the waters. Tamayo was a lifetime friend of the Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, who solidified his international reputation with this award winning film.

The canvas is large, made to seem larger by the overwhelming form of the woman who takes up almost the entire field. The colors are hot, pinks and reds dominated by a sunset orange background subtly tempered by blues and greys. The mystery of the painting is focused on the large pearl, echoed by a largewhite sphere resting at the lower right. (In an interview Tamayo was once asked what was the significance of the floating spheres that often appeared in his paintings. He replied that they had no iconographic meaning and that he put them in for visual balance.)

The painting has been in private hands for many years and has seldom been exhibited. It did travel to three cities in Japan in 1993-94, in an important retrospective Tamayo exhibition organized by The Nagoya City Art Museum. This was the last great exhibitionmounted in Tamayo's honor that the late Olga Tamayo, his widow, was able to attend.