Alfredo Ramos Martinez
Mexican, 1871-1946 (active Mexico, United States, France)
Indígenas rezando, 1940 ca.
gouache, charcoal and watercolor on newspaper
21 1/2 x 16 3/8 in.
SBMA, Gift of P.D. McMillan Land Company
1963.29
COMMENTS
RAMOS MARTINEZ - Paintings on Newspaper
Four works by Alfredo Ramos Martinez done on newspaper in one or more of the following media: gouache, charcoal and watercolor. All gifts of the McMillan Land Co., they are entitled 1) Indians Praying in a Little Church, 2) La Escuela, 3) Flower Vendors, 4) Flower Vendors (watercolor only).
Alfredo Ramos Martinez was born in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico on November 12, 1871 where he spent the first 10 years of his life.
In 1881, he entered a contest/exhibition in San Antonio, Texas, with a portrait of the Governor of Nuevo Leon and was awarded the first prize that included a scholarship in the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. At the age of 10, he left Monterrey and traveled to Mexico City to attend the Escuela.
In 1899 he came to the attention of philanthropist, Mrs. Phoebe Hearst, who offered him a stipend that would enable him to go to Europe, to continue his art studies in Paris and visit other European countries as well.
In 1900, Ramos Martinez left Mexico for Paris, where he remained for 10 years. "Shortly after his arrival in Paris, he met the well-know Nicaraguan poet, Rubén Darío (1867-1916). The meeting led to a friendship of immeasurable importance for both men. Darío reveled in the Parisian bohemian life, often inviting Ramos to join him and his friends in their forays into intellectual salons and bohemian nightlife as well as excursions into the countryside." 1 With Dario, Ramos traveled to Belgium and Holland where he studied Van Gogh and Rembrandt. In Paris he was influenced by "the paintings by Millet and Monet which led him toward landscapes of windmills and seascapes cast in golden light infused with oranges and blues." 2 Ramos Martinez exhibited paintings at the prestigious Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1905,1906 and 1907.
In 1910, he returned to Mexico and found a country "on the edge of a revolution that would change its political, social, economic and cultural structures." 3
In 1911, Ramos Martinez was appointed Assistant Director of the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes. The following year, the Escuela's name was changed in Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes.
In 1914, Ramos Martinez was removed as Director of the Academia, however, he was reappointed Director in 1920. During these years, he founded several Open Air Schools throughout Mexico.
In 1928, he married Maria de Sodi Romero of Oaxaca and a year later, 1929, a baby girl was born with a severe physical condition. In 1929, because of his daughter's situation, Ramos Martinez moved his family to Los Angeles.
With the exception of a 3-year period when he and his family were back in Mexico (1942-45), Ramos Martinez lived and worked mainly in Los Angeles until his death in 1946.
The techniques of using newspaper for some of his paintings was begun while Ramos Martinez was a student in France in the early 1900's. According to his wife, he was painting in a fishing village in Brittany when he ran out of paper and had to send to Paris for some more. In the meantime, his need to paint the scenes before him was too great so he used what was available - newspaper. All of these newspaper drawings were sold in a friend's studio upon his return to Paris and thus he began his continued use of this medium. He liked using the medium in future years because it could produce a fresco-like quality which was appealing to a mural painter such as he was.
Stylistically, the California period was very different from his earlier phases, first at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, then as a student in France, where he was strongly influenced by Impressionism and Post-Impressionism and finally as Assistant Director and Director of the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico City and of the open-air schools in Mexico.
The works produced in California at this time were abruptly modern, yet they focus on prevailing themes of the Mexican renaissance. He turned to the subjects he adored: the humble yet monumental Indian, the dramatic landscapes of Mexico and religious themes that reveal the fervent spirituality shared by his people. He explored the parameters of volume and space in his enormous oil on canvas portraits and his lyrical language of line and color are revealed in his elegant gouaches. The tender embrace of a mother and child, a grouping of vendedoras masterfully balancing baskets of abundant, colorful fruit on their heads, or a depiction of a processional of indigenous women dressed in warm tones of yellows and golds paying homage to the pre-Colombian deity, Quetzalcoatl, are beautifully rendered and even further dramatized by the texture of his chosen medium of newsprint.
According to George Small in California, "he rediscovered himself through concentrating on how to find a direct, powerful and primitive approach to Mexican Indian themes". 4
The influence of Alfredo Ramos Martinez on the development of modern Mexican painting is seen more clearly in his role as teacher rather than painter. By the time he was appointed director of the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes in 1914, revolt against academic teaching was already under way. He was appointed to that position to placate the students in spite of the fact that he himself had painted in the academic manner and had just returned from France. As new Director, he went about setting up the first open-air school at Santa Anita and later others in various places. In this school, as Ramos Martinez would explain, " we are trying to mold a school of action, permitting the students to pursue their own tendencies...the students' own efforts and inspirations are appealed to as the center of all activities, respecting in the pupil his personal manner of seeing, thinking and interpreting his visions." 5
It is in this way that he helped open the door to future artists such as Rivera, Siqueiros and Orozco although he himself never took part in the political revolution or to a style of painting that was a social and public art of this event. Still Ramos Martinez was able to give to Mexican art the high-keyed color quality that it still retains and "a new humanism, a fresh new relation to life". 6
1 The Alfredo Ramos Martinez Research Project, www.alfredoramosmartinez.com
2 Ibid
3 Ibid
4 Small, George Raphael, Ramos Martinez - His life and Art
5 The Alfredo Ramos Martinez Research Project, www.alfredoramosmartinez.com
6 Helm, Mackinley - Modern Mexican Painters
- Information found in the SBMA docent files. No bibliography, date or author.
Los Angeles Time Art Critic Christopher Knight discusses Ramos Martinez' drawings on newsprint in art historical and socio-economic context in the review of the exhibition "Picturing Mexico: Alfred Ramos Martinez in California" at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, January through April 20, 2014. See the full review printed in the Calendar section of the Tuesday, January 28, 2014 Los Angeles Times here:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-alfredo-ramos-martinez-review-20140128,0,6158800.story#axzz2rjN2jZNb