Mr. Tamayo helped Mr. Morales make contacts with art critics and gallery owners around the world. The two artists, along with Francisco Toledo, became a kind of triumvirate of masters whose work made Oaxaca an internationally renowned center for contemporary art. Mr. Morales was commissioned for various government and corporate projects, and his work was shown in individual exhibitions in galleries and museums throughout the world. Some critics dismissed his art as stale and folksy but most praised him as an imaginative and generous spirit. Mr. Morales said that fame frightened him in many ways.
Painters are poor and by earning thousands of dollars, they become drunk until they die.
In the late 1980's, Mr. Morales had finally earned enough to quit teaching, move back to Oaxaca and dedicate himself full time to his art. He created a foundation devoted to restoring the battered monuments of his dusty hometown, Ocotlan. Nostalgia and melancholy are very important to me. In an effort to promote art and culture in Oaxaca, Mr. Morales's foundation has organized workshops, provided materials to aspiring artists and planted thousands of new copal trees that not only give life to the barren landscape but also provide wood for the creation of the fantastical hand-painted animals known in Mexico as alebrijes. He leaves no immediate survivors.