Mexico City, Museo Nacional de Artes Plásticas, Tamayo: Veinte Años de su Labor Pictórica, June-September, 1948, no. 7, illustrated
Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Art Mexicain du Précolombien à nos Jours, Tome II, May-July 1952, no. 1060
Mexico City, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, De los Tiempos Precolombinos a Nuestros Días, March-May, 1963, no. 20, illustrated

Luis Cardoza y Aragón, Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City, 1934, no. 7, p. 50, illustrated
Laurence E. Schmeckebier, Modern Mexican Art, Minneapolis, 1939, no. 199, illustrated
Luis Cardoza y Aragón, La nube y el reloj: Pintura Contemporánea Mexicana, Mexico City, 1940, no. 4, illustrated
Robert Goldwater, Rufino Tamayo, New York, 1947, The Quadrangle Press, no. VII, p. 50, illustrated
Luis Cardoza y Aragón, Pintura Mexicana Contemporánea, Mexico City, 1953, no. 2, pp. 145 and 169, illustrated
Paul Westheim, "El Arte de Tamayo, una Investigación Estética," Artes de México, May-June 1956, illustrated
Paul Westheim, Tamayo: Una Investigación Estética, Mexico City, 1957, Ediciones Artes de México, illustrated
Reider Rovold, "Rufino Tamayo," Kunsten Idag, Oslo, 1957, pp. 37-49, illustrated
Sofía Verea de Bernal, "Niños de México," Artes de México, Mexico City, 1970,  no. 129, p. 85, illustrated
Elena Kozloba, "Orígenes de la pintura de Rufino Tamayo," América Latina, Moscow, November 1986, p. 70, illustrated
Judith Alanís, Rufino Tamayo, una cronología, 1899-1987, Mexico City, 1987, p. 25
Luis Cardoza y Aragón, La nube y el reloj: Pintura Contemporánea Mexicana, Mexico City, 2003

This painting is in beautiful condition. The canvas is unlined and still on its original stretcher. The paint layer is clean and unvarnished. There are no reinforcements on the reverse and no paint losses to the surface. The painting should be hung as is. This condition report has been provided courtesy of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Rufino Tamayo painted many portraits of children during the 1920s and 1930s—all of which share a voluntary rigidity, an affected, but sincere naivety, and a certain degree of primitive will. This rarely-seen or studied painting Portrait of Child, also known as Photographic Portrait, appears to be traditional, yet is quite endearing. It brings together many of the qualities that shaped one of the most personal and unprecedented poetics in the history of Mexican art—that of Rufino Tamayo. The painting shares the innate eclecticism of the avant-garde evident in the other children painted by the Oaxacan artist, by incorporating contradictory elements, but in this case fused within a harmonious whole, constituting one of the paint🤪er's surprisingly early masterpieces.

To achieve this, Tamayo constructed a seemingly conventional scene, in reality impregnated with a spirit of modernity. Beginning with the image of a popular photograph, already dated by the time he conceived of the painting, Tamayo turned humble found relics into elements that make up an authentic aesthetic discourse with avant-garde🥀 overtones. In analyzing this painting, one could invoke the precepts of surrealism, the expressionist antecedents, the memories of popular painting, the beginnings of nineteenth-century Mexican portraiture, the forms of pre-Hispanic earthenware as well as subtle traces of Matisse, Cézanne and Picasso's vigor.

In the painting a child poses solemnly for a traveling photographer, of the kind that used to circulate through the working-class towns and neighborhoods of Mexico City. Those anonymous artists carried not only their cameras and accessories, but also the enchanting backdrops used, which transported the subject to fantastic palatial interiors or lush forests. These backdrops consisted of exquisite and naively painted scenes over a drape that was hung in the background to enhance and complete the fantasy. In this case, Tamayo's child stands against a landscape that appears in the original black-and-white photograph. The landscape seems to be that of an interior garden in a colonial building. In the distance stands a church tower, which also appears in the open window of La Venus fotogénica (The Photogenic Venus) from 1934. The backdrop is surrounded by a heavy and antiquated Viennese curtain, draped in repeated and abundant folds, which frame the enigmatic child. Upright and tense, he firmly grasps the top edge of a colonial balustrade. His impenetrability an𒀰d skin color recall pre-Hispanic sculpture. At his feet, Tamayo has displayed a disconcerting still life, presided over by a mandolin.

This rarely seen painting, known heretofore only through🐻 old black and white reproductions may now be appreciated in all its splendorous colors. Today, the public can place itself at the mercy of the poetic inspirations and daydreams suggested by Tamayo with this canvas of hidden and delicate nostalgia.

Juan Carlos Pereda, art historian, Mexico City

The Spanish version of this essay can be viewed on laitexieꦅr.com.