Art by Rufino Tamayo

Tamayo, of Zapotec descent, was orphaned young and raised by an aunt who ran a fruit stall in Mexico City, where he worked as a child, a background often credited as the source of the fruit and watermelon imagery, most famously his 1977 painting "Watermelons," that recurs throughout his work. He deliberately kept some distance from Mexico's dominant muralist trio, Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros, favoring more formal, less overtly political concerns even while working in a similarly monumental Mexican visual tradition. He and his wife Olga founded two museums bearing his name, one in Oaxaca and one in Mexico City, the latter built specifically to house an international art collection they donated to the country.