Rufino tamayo watermelons

In the early 1960s, Tamayo moved to Mexico permanently, where he would live and work for the rest of his career, creating compositions renowned for their colors and textures.

During this decade, he held retrospectives at the Museo de Art Moderno, Mexico City; Palacio de Bellas Artes; Phoenix Museum of Fine Arts; and was honored as a special guest at the 1968 Venice Biennial. Having begun acquiring pre-Columbian art in 1951, Tamayo donated his collection to Oaxaca in the form of the Museo de Arte Prehispánico de México Rufino Tamayo, which opened its doors in 1974.

It would be the first of two institutions Tamayo helped found, the second being the Museo Rufino Tamayo in Mexico City, which houses the artist’s collection of international contemporary art. In 1977, Tamayo was named “Dean of Latin American Painting” during the 1977 São Paulo Biennial, which accompanied a massive exhibition of his work at the