Twentieth-century Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo is primarily known for his paintings and murals, but he was also an avid printmaker. Tamayo’s prints provided the artist a medium to experiment with materials, subject matter, and techniques. Tamayo often collaborated with print workshops in Mexico, Europe, and the United States during these explorations. One such collaboration was with the Taller de Gráfica Mexicana, a lithography studio founded in Mexico City by husband-and-wife team Luis and Lea Remba, and now based in Los Angeles.

The Rembas often invited artists to their workshop, providing them with studio space and a place to test drive new ideas. In 1973, they invited Tamayo. At the time, Tamayo was looking to change the look of his prints, a traditionally flat medium, by incorporating aspects of texture and dimensionality. The artist accepted their invitation with the caveat that they work with him to create prints with more dimension. Together, they developed the proprietary Mixografía® printing technique, a completely innovative way to create prints with volume and texture.

So, how are Mixografía® prints made?

First, the artist carves and sculpts a model—or maquette—for the print with texture and surface details. Unlike many printmaking techniques where the first step is creating an image in reverse, with Mixografía®, the artist works in the positive, which means the orientation of the preparatory model is the same as the final print.

Mixografía’s master printers then make a mold of the artist’s model from which a printing plate is cast. The cast plate captures the precise textural details of the artist’s model in reverse. Tamayo used copper for his printing plates.

The master printers then carefully apply printing ink—made of pigments mixed with vegetable oils—to the plate by hand.

Meanwhile, 100-percent cotton fibers are mixed with water and an alkaline buffering agent and then beaten to create pulp. While the plate is inked, pulp is poured over a mold and deckle—a very fine screen—to shape it and drain the water, as shown in this image.

Before the paper dries, the master printers lay the wet, pulpy paper on the inked printing plate and run them together through the high-pressure roller to create a print. Mixografía’s handmade paper is pliable enough to absorb the ink and assume the textures embedded in the plate.