Alfredo Ramos Martínez
Alfredo Ramos Martínez | |
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Albert M. Bender (San Francisco) |
Alfredo Ramos Martínez (November 12, 1871 – November 8, 1946) was a
Early years 1880-1900
Ramos Martínez was born in 1871 in Monterrey, Nuevo León, the ninth child of Jacobo Ramos and his wife Luisa Martínez.[2] His father was a successful merchant trading in jewelry, fine fabrics, silver, embroidered suits and hand-woven sarapes from Saltillo. All members of the Ramos Martínez family were involved with their father's business and it was expected that the artist, too, would one day join the ranks of "honorable merchant". However, Ramos Martínez's evident talent and instincts propelled him towards a career in the arts; a choice that his family ultimately supported.
At the age of nine, one of Ramos Martínez's drawings, a portrait of the governor of Monterrey was sent to an exhibition in San Antonio, Texas, and won first prize. A portion of that prize included a scholarship to study at the most prestigious art school in all of Mexico, the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes (Academy of Fine Arts) in Mexico City.[3] Thus the entire Ramos Martínez family relocated to Coyoacán, a small town on the outskirts of Mexico City.
From an early age Ramos Martínez was recognized as prodigiously talented. As a student, his preferred medium was
In a supreme bit of good fortune, Phoebe Hearst attended a dinner in Mexico City for the President of Mexico, Porfirio Díaz, which featured place mats designed and painted by the young Ramos Martínez. Hearst was so impressed with the decoration that she asked to meet the artist and see other examples of his work. After their meeting, she not only bought all of Ramos Martínez's watercolors, but agreed to provide financial support for the artist's continued study in Paris.[5]
Paris 1901-1910
Ramos Martínez's arrival in Paris in 1900 coincided with further development of the
While in Paris, Ramos Martínez attended various artistic and literary
Darío wrote at length about the painterly and literary ideas that defined the creative output of both artists during those years. sky and sea.
Also, it was in Brittany, that Ramos Martínez began painting and drawing on newspapers, a material/medium he used to superb effect during his years in California. When the artist discovered he had run out of drawing paper, he asked the concierge at the inn where he was staying during a holiday weekend if he had any paper suitable for drawing. The gentleman offered him discarded newspapers in abundance.[3]
In 1905, Ramos Martínez began participating in the yearly Salon d'Automne in Paris, perhaps the most important of all the salons of that era.[7] Within a year of his first showing there, his painting Le Printemps was awarded the Gold medal.[6]
However, after this great acknowledgment, Hearst decided she would no longer give him his monthly stipend and Ramos Martínez began the struggle of earning his living as an artist.[8]
Ramos Martínez showed at a number of galleries in Paris. One of the leading art critics of the day, Camille Mauclair wrote that the work of Ramos Martínez was in the same class as the finest Impressionist landscapes exhibited in Paris.[1] Though sales of his artwork were proceeding, and Ramos Martínez had achieved a degree of comfort as a 'Parisian', in 1909 he felt a strong desire to return home to Mexico.
Mexico 1910-1929
By the time Ramos Martínez arrived in early 1910, Mexico was a nation in turmoil.[7] The Mexican Revolution was beginning in earnest and the 30-year rule of President Porfirio Díaz was on the verge of collapse due to the pressure of the political reforms of Francisco I. Madero. Within a year of the President's resignation in 1911, the art students at the National Academy called a strike in order to protest the 'aesthetic dictatorship' of the Academy. They demanded the establishment of a 'Free Academy' and proposed Ramos Martínez as director.[4] Hailed as a distinguished alumnus, a bona fide European success, and sympathetic to the students' cause, Ramos Martínez became first the assistant Director and, by 1913, the Director of the Academy.
Now, as Director, he was able to open the first of his Open Air Schools of Painting.[6] With the example of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists in mind and fortified by his sense of the primacy of the artist's personal vision, Ramos Martínez's Open Air Schools redefined the nature of artistic instruction in Mexico.[4]
The first school was established in the Santa Anita
The political situation in Mexico remained extremely volatile for the next decade and by 1920 Ramos Martínez was reinstated as Director of the Academy. Despite all the politics, the Open Air Schools flourished and Ramos Martínez was acknowledged as a true innovator in the Mexican art world and frequently called the 'Father of Modern Mexican Art'. To quote Ramón Alva de la Canal in "Los acaparadores de murales", "...the true force behind contemporary Mexican painting wasn't Diego Rivera; it was Alfredo Ramos Martínez."
Ramos Martínez' art pedagocial ideas were introduced in Japan by the Japanese painter Tamiji Kitagawa, who worked as a teacher at the Open Air Schools in Tlalpan and Taxco during the 1920s and 1930s, and became an influential figure in the liberal art education movement in postwar Japan.
While Ramos Martínez invested most of his energy in teaching and the establishment of his Open Air Schools, he also continued his own work as a painter. In 1923, he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Leopold by King Albert I of Belgium in recognition of his contributions to the visual arts.[9]
In 1928, Ramos Martínez married Maria de Sodi Romero of Oaxaca. Their daughter, Maria was born one year later, suffering from a crippling bone disease. Ramos Martínez resigned as Director of the Academy and sought treatment for his daughter's condition. The family first traveled to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and eventually settled in the milder climate of Los Angeles, with Maria under the care of Dr. John A. Wilson.
California 1930-1946
Having relocated to Los Angeles in 1929, Ramos Martínez was offered an exhibition by William Alanson Bryan, Director of the
Ramos Martínez was also exhibited with great success in
In addition to his mastery of all conventional media including
Alfredo Ramos Martínez died unexpectedly at the age of 73 on November 8, 1946, in Los Angeles. He was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California. At the time of his death, Ramos Martínez was working on a series of murals entitled "The Flower Vendors" at Scripps College.[10] The unfinished murals have been preserved as a tribute to the artist.[11]
Recent history
After the artist's death, the Dalzell Hatfield Gallery in Los Angeles continued to showcase his paintings and drawings. Maria Sodi de Ramos Martínez, the artist's widow, saw to it that Ramos Martínez was included in numerous gallery exhibitions. Until her death in 1985, she was the primary champion of her late husband's work.
In 1991,
These two exhibitions became the cornerstones of a re-examination of Ramos Martínez's work and subsequent development of a secondary market for these works. As with the other major Mexican modernists, indigenous peoples were the principal subjects in the mature works of Ramos Martínez. In recent years, several of these paintings have realized high prices on the international art market. His 1938 painting Flowers of Mexico brought over $4 million at Christie's, New York in May 2007.
The Alfredo Ramos Martinez Research Project
See also
References
- ^ a b Maria Sodi de Ramos Martínez, "Paris" Alfredo Ramos Martínez, translated by Berta de Lecuona, The Martínez Foundation, 1949.
- ^ Maria Sodi de Ramos Martínez, "First Years" Alfredo Ramos Martínez, translated by Berta de Lecuona, The Martínez Foundation, 1949.
- ^ a b Jean Stern, "Alfredo Ramos Martínez" included in Alfredo Ramos Martínez, Louis Stern Galleries, October 1991.
- ^ a b c d Brooke Waring, "Martínez and Mexico's Renaissance" The North American Review Quarterly, Vol. 240, December 1935.
- ^ a b c Margarita Nieto and Louis Stern, "Mexico", Alfredo Ramos Martínez & Modernismo, Alfredo Ramos Martínez Research Project, 2010.
- ^ a b c George Raphael Small, Alfredo Ramos Martínez, His Life and Art, F & J Publishing Corp, 1975.
- ^ a b Margarita Nieto, "The Game of Circumstance", included in Alfredo Ramos Martínez, Louis Stern Galleries, October 1991.
- ^ Margarita Nieto and Louis Stern, "Paris", Alfredo Ramos Martínez & Modernismo, Alfredo Ramos Martínez Research Project, 2010.
- ^ Virginia Stewart, "Alfredo Ramos Martínez", 45 Contemporary Mexican Artists, Stanford University Press, 1951.
- ^ Daily ArtFixx, "Cinco de Mayo - A.R. Martínez Retrieved 2009-07-03
- ^ Scripps College: Guide to the Scripps Campus: Margaret Fowler Memorial Garden Retrieved on 2009-07-02
- ^ Alfredo Ramos Martinez http://www.alfredoramosmartinez.com/