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Perro Aullando (Howling Dog)
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Object number2011.100

Perro Aullando (Howling Dog)

Artist (Mexican, 1899-1991)
Date1960
Mediumcolor lithograph
Dimensionsimage: 19 3/4 × 23 3/4 in. (50.2 × 60.3 cm)
sheet: 22 1/4 × 30 in. (56.5 × 76.2 cm)
mat: 30 × 40 in. (76.2 × 101.6 cm)
Credit LinePermanent Collection Fund
Exhibition History"Copley to Kentridge: What's New in the Collection?," KIA (Sept.14 - Dec. 1, 2013). "Passion on Paper: Masterly Prints from the KIA Collection," March 15 - July 17, 2018, Groos Gallery.Label Text"Scientists say that a dog howls to establish territory or to communicate its presence to other dogs. Poets say it howls because it howls, or because of loneliness, or sadness, or madness, or grief. It could be longing, or protesting, or desire, or just want. Perhaps Tamayo embraced all these possibilities and crafted an image that permits as wide an interpretation as a viewer wishes to impose. Tamayo’s dog is truly filled with passion. It howls in a sparse, somewhat enigmatic setting. The scrawny cactus, big blue sky, and dark moon suggest a desert-like setting but the oddly abstract triangular form that looms along the right edge of the image could be a wall. Or is it a stylized mountain? By 1960 Tamayo was an internationally acclaimed artist who was admired as a great colorist. He was a prolific painter and was known as one of Mexico’s “Big Three” muralists along with Diego Rivera and David Siqueiros. After 1926 he lived largely outside of Mexico and made his prints with various well-established workshops in North America and Europe (written by Nancy Sojka for Passion on Paper: Masterly Prints from the KIA Collection, 2018).".