Flor y canto Diego Rivera’s La ofrenda and Rufino Tamayo’s Perro aullando a la luna

Diego Rivera’s 1931 painting La ofrenda (The Offering) and Rufino Tamayo’s 1942 painting Perro aullando a la luna (Dog Howling at the Moon) are masterworks the artists made during periods of great professional and critical success in the United States. While Rivera tended to depict scenes of indigenous culture and political subjects bound to time and place, Tamayo concerned himself with allegory, timeless universal themes, and formal investigations of color, line and shape. Although Rivera and Tamayo differed strongly in their artistic intentions, a fundamental and ever-present inspiration for their work was Mexico’s ancient indigenous art and culture and popular (folk) art, which they studied and collected avidly.

La ofrenda and Perro aullando a la luna are on loan from Art Bridges. For one year, these two paintings will be the focal point of three different exhibition contexts at the JSMA. We are deeply grateful to Art Bridges for these special loans, as well as their support toward related programming, community outreach, audience engagement, and project evaluation. The first Flor y canto installation focused on the historical moment when Rivera and Tamayo painted these works and the artists’ cross-cultural dialogues with New York City, modern art, and the art world. This second installation extends the concept of cross-cultural conversations. La ofrenda and Perro aullando a la luna are exhibited with objects from China, Cuba, Japan, Mexico, and the United States, in the museum’s collection and from private lenders, that resonate thematically with Rivera and Tamayo’s subjects.

Generous support for this project provided by Art Bridges.