Tuesday, December 22, 2020 – Enjoy the joyous art of this Mexican early twentieth century master.
ALFREDO RAMOS MARTINEZ
Autoretrato/Self Portrait ca. 1938 tempera on newsprint
20 3/4 x 15 1/4 inches; 53 x 39 centimeters
All images ©The Alfredo Ramos Martinez Research Project.
SHOP THE KIOSK FOR LAST MINUTE GIFTS TUES., WED. & THURS.12-5
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2020
The
242nd Edition
From Our Archives
EARLY WORKS
Fête Champêtre/ Festival in the Countryside
ca. 1905
oil on canvas / óleo sobre tela
28.5 x 36.4 inches; 72.4 x 92.4 centímetros
Museo Andres Blaisten
Alfredo Ramos Martínez
1871-1946
Mexican In the Ranch, Mexico Signed “Ramos Martinez” (lower right); inscribed “In the Ranch, Mexico” (en verso) Oil on board Alongside Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo stands the great Alfredo Ramos Martínez as one of the most important Mexican artists of the modern age. Over a long career, Ramos Martínez produced works in a modern idiom that was both nostalgic and accessible, but never sentimental, and with a remarkable beauty in their simplicity of form and structure. In the Ranch, Mexico offers clear testimony to the artist’s ability to capture the spirit of Mexican life with his distinctive aesthetic sensibility – highly stylized compositions and a palette bursting with rich and earthy color.
Throughout his life, Ramos Martínez composed Gauguinesque representations of Mexico’s indigenous people that promoted a romanticized view of Mexican culture. He was among the first artists of the modern era to paint Mexican subjects while working outdoors with live Indian models, which was very much in the tradition of the French Impressionists painting en plein air. In In the Ranch, Mexico, Ramos Martínez’s figures appear at one with the landscape. He used the same limited color tones to render both the peasants and the building and hills that surround them. The work is clearly a product of its time – Ramos Martínez brings together elements of Art Deco, reducing classical motifs to their essential form through geometric stylization. It is the work’s narrative strength, ascetic palette and purity of line that makes it so compelling even today.
In the Ranch, Mexico was painted at the height of the artist’s career while he was living in California seeking medical care for his daughter. During his self-imposed exile, Ramos Martínez achieved remarkable success in Los Angeles, securing work painting murals almost immediately upon his arrival in 1929. Though his compositions capture the spirit of Mexican life, his success in California proves that his legacy transcended cultural borders, and today he is also considered a major figure of California Modernism as well as Mexican art.
Born in Monterrey in 1871, Alfredo Ramos Martínez began his artistic career at an early age. When he was just fourteen years old, his portrait of the governor of Nuevo León was awarded first prize at an art exhibition in San Antonio. The prize came with a scholarship to the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, and thus Ramos Martínez began his studies as an artist.
From the beginning, he rebelled against the strict Academic structure of his classes and his teachers’ adherence to prevailing European aesthetics. Yet, in 1899 Phoebe Apperson Hearst visited the school and was so impressed by Ramos Martínez’s talent that she agreed to finance the young painter’s studies in Paris. His time spent in Europe, where he fraternized with the likes of Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Joaquín Sorolla, who would significantly influence the trajectory of his career.
Using the techniques he had so faithfully studied and practiced during his European years, Ramos Martínez succeeded in creating a new kind of Mexican art, bringing together an awareness of Mexico’s pre-Columbian history and culture with modern aesthetics. His subjects particularly appealed to a Hollywood clientele who became significant patrons of Mexican art, including screenwriter Jo Swerling; the directors Dudley Murphy and Alfred Hitchcock; and actors John Huston, Corinne Griffith, Charles Laughton and Beulah Bondi. Today, his works are highly prized in private collections, achieving significant prices at auction, and they are held in museum collections around the world, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Museo Andres Blaisten, San Diego Museum of Art and the Phoenix Art Museum.
M.S. Rau (c)
Portrait of Nahui Olin
ca. 191
5 pastel on paper on canvas / pastel sobre papel sobre tela 55 1/8 x 36 3/8 inches; 140 x 92.4 centímetros Private Collection
PAINTINGS OF THE 1930’S AND 1940’S
En el Rancho Mexicano / In the Ranch,
Mexico ca. 1936 oil on board / óleo sobre cartón 23.9 x 27.4 inches; 60.6 x 69.5 centímetros
Vendora de Flores / Flower Vendor
1934 oil on canvas/óleo sobre tela 32 x 28 inches; 81.3 x 71.1 centímetros
Private collection
Vendeoras de Frutas / Fruit Vendors
ca. 1938
oil on canvas / óleo sobre tela
38 1/8 x 31 inches; 96.8 x 78.7 centímetros
Flores Tropicales / Tropical Flowers
tempera and Conté crayon on cardboard / temple y crayon Conté sobre cartón
23 ½ x 34 inches; 59.7 x 86.4 centímetros
La Puesta del Sol / Sunrise
gouache, Conté crayon, and pencil on paper; guada, crayon Conté, y lápiz sobre papel 22 1/2 x 27 1/2 inches; 57.2 x 69.5 centímetros
MURALS
Hotel Playa Ensenada, Ensenada, Baja California
1929
La Capilla del Cementerio de Santa Bárbara
(The Chapel of the Santa Barbara Cemetery)
1934
El Día del Mercado (Market Day)
Mural for La Avenida Cafe, Coronado
(Now at the Coronado Public Library)
1937
Vendedoras de Flores (The Flower Vendors) Margaret Fowler Memorial Garden, Scripps College 1945-1946
THE ALFREDO RAMOS MARTINEZ RESEARCH PROJECT
To see more of this wonderful work go to:
alfredoramosmartinez.com
All images coyright by the Alfredo Ramos Martinez Project
TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
SEND YOUR SUBMISSION TO:
ROOSEVELTISLANDHISTORY@GMAIL.COM
MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
Courtyard at the Octagon
Jinny Ewald ad Gloria Herman got it
CLARIFICATION
WE ARE HAPPY TO GIVE WINNERS OF OUR DAILY PHOTO IDENTIFICATION A TRINKET FROM THE VISITOR CENTER.
ONLY THE PERSON IDENTIFYING THE PHOTO FIRST WILL GET A PRIZE.
WE HAVE A SPECIAL GROUP OF ITEMS TO CHOOSE FROM. WE CANNOT GIVE AWAY ALL OUR ITEMS,. PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMES,
WE MUST LIMIT GIVE-AWAYS. THANK YOU
This morning I was looking thru the NYTimes and spotted an ad from M.S. Rau Antiques. They usually feature very expensive and unique pieces in the ads. Today it was the painting by Ramos Martinez. What a joy to look up the work by this artist. I can only feature a few on the website, so please check out alfredoramosmartinez.com. You will be muy alegre.
Feliz navidad y ano nuevo.
Judith Berdy
Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
ALFREDO RAMOS MARTINEZ
RESEARCH PROECT (C)
M.S. Rau Antiques
All image are copyrighted (c)
Roosevelt Island Historical Society
unless otherwise indicated
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
PHOTOS BY JUDITH BERDY / RIHS (C)
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