El Hombre (Man)

This portable mural—comprised of three large panels—was painted by Rufino Tamayo in 1953 under a commission by then Dallas Art Association President, Stanley Marcus. A result of the Museum’s interest in acquiring Mexican works and expanding its collection of Latin American paintings, El Hombre represents a symbiosis between Mexico and Texas, and the endearing friendship between Marcus and Tamayo.

Proudly divorcing himself from the politicized and nationalistic subject matter of his contemporaries, Tamayo chose a universal subject for this monumental painting—humankind. Devoid of the traditional allusions to Mexico and Mexicanism, El Hombe echoes an ancient heritage, while engaging in a dialogue with Mexican and European modernism. Here the artist paints a colossal figure whose abstracted limbs are both firmly planted into the ground and whimsically interwoven within the constellations. On his work, Tamayo states, “I am interested in Man. Man is my subject, Man who is the creator of all scientific and technological wonders.” The artist paints man as transcendent being—a liminal figure on the borderlands of innovation and tradition, future and past. At the man’s foot, Tamayo paints a dog, a reminder of terrestrial limitations amidst a celestial scene of human aspiration and development.