© Latinas in History 2008
Daughter
of the well-known Puerto Rican artist Rafael Tufiño and the Mexican dancer,
Luz María Aguirre, Nitza Tufiño was born in Mexico City and taken
to Puerto Rico when she was a year old. Her artistic talents blossomed under her
parents' tutelege and by 1966 she was studying fine arts at San Carlos Academy
at the Universidad Autónoma of Mexico. In 1970, as a newly minted B.F.A.,
with a place in Manhattan, New York, Tufiño embarked upon her career as
an artist. Her first ceramic mural was for the façade of el Museo del Barrio,
a community-based museum that she had helped found. During the 1970s she served
as a consultant on Puerto Rican and Caribbean art at the Brooklyn Museum and the
Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the early 1980s she returned to school, earning
an M.S. in urban affairs (1982) from Hunter College, City University of New York.
Commissioned to create a mural for the Third Street Music School in the Lower
East Side of Manhattan, Tufiño was inspired by Taíno history and
titled her work “Sinfonía Taína” (Taino Symphony). Her
ceramic mural, Neo-Boriquén, was installed in the subway station at 103rd
Street and Lexington Avenue. Depicting a tropical landscape, reminiscent of the
Caribbean, with Taino spirits overseeing the lush, flowering trees and plants,
this work was commissioned by the New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority.
Among her recent projects, The Wall of Peace, is found in the lobby of the Thomas
Jefferson School in South Orange, New Jersey. Tufiño's work continues to
inspire and she has received numerous accolades including the Mid-Atlantic National
Endowment for the Arts Regional Award (1992), the New York Foundation for the
Arts Artist’s Fellowship in 1984, and 1987, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense
and Education Fund Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Arts (1992), and
the New York City Council Excellence in Arts Award (1991).
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