June 23, 2009 Amon Carter Museum Exhibits Prints by Renowned Mexican Artist Rufino Tamayo

White gallery wall; seven framed prints hang on the wall.

Fort Worth, TX, June 23, 2009—Works by famed Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo (1899–1991) are currently on view at the Amon Carter Museum in a small exhibition from the museum’s permanent collection. The exhibition, titled Rufino Tamayo: Tamarind Lithography Workshop, features 16 prints created by the artist at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles in 1964.

The exhibition runs through November 1, and admission is free.

“When Tamayo made these prints, he was already an established painter in Paris, New York, and Mexico,” says Jane Myers, senior curator of prints and drawings. “The images he created at Tamarind embody his humanitarian concerns. During the fellowship in Los Angeles, he discussed the threat of nuclear war, saying: 'As soon as we heard of the development of the atom bomb, I became preoccupied with this awesome situation, and my work has more and more reflected the urgency of man’s relationship to the sky and the planets and to space.'”

The Tamarind Lithography Workshop opened in Los Angeles in 1960. At a time when lithography as an art form was in decline, the workshop sought to enhance the prestige of the medium by offering artists the opportunity to explore lithography in innovative collaborations with a pool of master printers. In 1970 the workshop moved to the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, where it operates today as the Tamarind Institute. The Amon Carter Museum has extensive holdings of lithographs made at Tamarind during its first decade of operation.