Rufino Tamayo’s bold, symbolic paintings and prints unite elements of European modernism, Mexican folk art, and pre-Columbian ceramics. Tamayo filled his paintings and prints with emotive color palettes and blocky, pared-down compositions — riffs on both indigenous motifs and the Cubist figurations of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Tamayo studied at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas “San Carlos” in Mexico City before joining the department of ethnographic drawing at the city’s Museo Nacional de Arqueología. There, he immersed himself in the collection of pre-Columbian art. During his lifetime, Tamayo exhibited widely in Mexico City, New York, and Paris, among other cities. His works regularly sell for seven figures on the secondary market and belong in the collections of the Tate, the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.