Painted in the 1950s by the Mexican modernist Rufino Tamayo (1899–1991), 'El Juglar' ('The Troubadour') depicts a singer cradling his guitar against a glowing red-and-violet ground scratched into Tamayo's characteristic coarse, almost frescoed texture. Working against the politically didactic realism of the Rivera–Siqueiros mural school, Tamayo forged a personal lyrical modernism that fused the colour sensibility of indigenous Mexican tradition with the formal vocabulary of the School of Paris. The picture is a core work of the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City, the institution Tamayo himself endowed with his collection.

Exhibition Venue

Museo Tamayo

Mexico City, Mexico