Museo de Arte Prehispánico de México Rufino Tamayo

The Museo de Arte Prehispánico de México Rufino Tamayo stands on Avenida Morelos 503, four blocks north of the Zócalo in Oaxaca City. It holds the pre-Hispanic collection that the painter Rufino Tamayo (1899–1991), Oaxaca's most famous artist, built up with his wife Olga over more than two decades and then gave to the people of his native city. It opened on 29 January 1974, and a green-stone plaque at the entrance carries his dedication of the museum to the Oaxacan people.

The museum occupies an 18th-century colonial house set around a patio. Over the centuries it was used by officials of the Inquisition, then as a government office and, until 1971, as the state's general archive. That year the cultural authorities handed it to Tamayo, who had it restored and adapted without changing its layout. The museography was the work of Fernando Gamboa, one of Mexico's great exhibition designers, who left the façade untouched and suggested painting the display niches in Tamayo's own colours.

Around 1,350 pieces fill five rooms, each painted in a colour from Tamayo's palette: blue, green, pink, violet and orange. The figures, vessels and masks come from all over ancient Mexico, from Colima, Nayarit, Jalisco and Guerrero in the west to Veracruz, Chiapas and the Maya area, along with Zapotec and Mixtec works from Oaxaca itself; some figurines are more than 3,000 years old. Tamayo chose them for their beauty, and they are displayed as art rather than as archaeology, without strict chronological or regional order. The museum was closed for more than three years because of the pandemic and administrative disputes and reopened on 10 August 2023.