Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo
Contemporary art museum in Chapultepec park, built around Rufino Tamayo's international collection.
The museum was founded by the painter Rufino Tamayo and his wife Olga to give Mexico a permanent home for international modern and contemporary art. Tamayo donated the collection he had assembled over decades, and the building, designed by Teodoro González de León with Abraham Zabludovsky, opened on 29 May 1981. Its stepped concrete volumes are set low among the trees of the first section of Chapultepec, with daylight drawn into the galleries through clerestories and courtyards. The design won the Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes for its architects.
The permanent collection includes works by Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Fernand Léger, Francis Bacon, Willem de Kooning, Isamu Noguchi and Andy Warhol, alongside Tamayo's own paintings, and has been extended since by acquisitions and commissions of recent art. The programme mixes large monographic shows with research-led group exhibitions and site-specific projects for the building itself. A parallel schedule of talks, screenings, workshops and publications is run from the museum's education department, and admission is free on Sundays.
Highlights
- Tamayo's donated collection of twentieth-century international art
- Stepped concrete building by González de León and Zabludovsky
- Changing programme of contemporary commissions and group shows
- Set among the trees of the first section of Chapultepec park
