Woman with Pineapple 1941

Rufino Tamayo’s "Woman with Pineapple" employs a vivid palette and bold geometric forms to present a seated female figure alongside a pineapple. The woman’s form, rendered in ochre, red and gray, is strikingly stylized, with the fragmented planes of her face echoing Cubist sensibilities. Tamayo’s composition cleverly uses a dark, vertically-striped background that both flattens the space and pushes the figure forward. This interplay between depth and surface complicates our reading of the subject, inviting us to consider the painting not merely as a representation, but as a carefully constructed arrangement of shapes and colors. The pineapple itself, rendered in bright yellow and green, offers a textural contrast to the smoother, more planar treatment of the figure. Tamayo seems to challenge fixed notions of representation, compelling us to appreciate the painting's formal qualities and its subtle subversion of conventional perspective.