As the renowned Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío wrote,
"Ramos Martínez is one of those who paints poems; he does not copy, he
interprets; he understands how to express the sorrow of the fisherman and the
melancholy of the village.”
He was born
in 1871 in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon,
the ninth child to 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, Alfredo’s evident talent and instincts propelled him
towards a career in the arts; a choice that his family ultimately supported.
From an
early age he was winning awards for his art. At the age of nine, one of his drawings,
a portrait of the governor of Monterrey, was
sent to an exhibition in San Antonio, Texas, where he won first
prize.
He studied
at the most prestigious school in Mexico. The Academia
Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico
City. hough
he found the teaching methods at the Academy repressive and counter-intuitive
to his more emotional impulses, he created enough work to sell while still a
student.
Gratifying
as his youthful accomplishments were, the news from France,
and the examples of the brilliance of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists, persuaded the
young painter that he needed to be in Europe
to continue his education and define his career. Though his family was by no
means poor, they did not have funds to support his European dream.
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 Alfredo’s watercolors, but agreed to provide financial support for the
artist's continued study in Paris. While in Paris, Alfredo attended
various artistic and literary salons and
made the acquaintance of the modernist Nicaraguan poet, Rubio Dario.
He was then invited into the circle of rather extraordinary bon vivants such
as Isadora Duncan, Paul Verlaine, Eleonora Duse, and Anna Pavlova. Though sales of his artwork were proceeding, and Alfredo had achieved a
degree of comfort as a 'Parisian', in 1909 he felt a strong desire to return
home to Mexico.By this
time Mexico
was a nation in turmoil. The Mexican Revolution was beginning and the 30-year rule of President Porfirio Diaz was
on the verge of collapse. 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 due to his success in Europe.
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, "...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. 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. Alfredo 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.
He had
great success in California and his works were bought by many celebrities, such
as Alfred Hitchcock , costume designer Edith Head, and actors Charles Laughton, Gary Cooper, and James Stewart.
Albert Bender (art collector who was one of the leading patrons of the arts in San Francisco in
the 1920s and 1930s. He played a key role in the early career of Ansel Adams and
was one of Diego Rivera's first American patrons. ) became
a lifelong friend of the artist and acquired numerous works for his personal
collection. He also purchased and donated Ramos Martínez works to several San
Francisco institutions, including the Legion of
Honor, the San Francisco
Museum of Art, the California
Historical Society, and Mills College.
In
addition to his mastery of all conventional media including drawing, printmaking, watercolor, and painting, Alfredo was an extremely skilled muralist who
excelled in the technically challenging art of traditional fresco painting.
Alfredo died unexpectedly at the age of 73 in 1946, in Los Angeles.
He was buried at Holy Cross
Cemetery in Culver City, California. At the time of his death, he was working on a series of murals entitled "The
Flower Vendors" at Scripps College.The unfinished murals have been preserved as a tribute to
the artist.
In recent
years his genius been appreciated and his works are commanding high prices. His 1938
painting Flowers of Mexico brought over $4 million at Christie's, New York in May 2007. As
with the other major Mexican modernists, indigenous peoples were the principal
subjects in the mature works of Alfredo Ramos Martínez. And as much as I appreciate them, I love his work of nuns at prayer.
Images:
Top- Crucifixion and Nuns
Left- Nuns & Franciscans
Right- Nuns in Procession
Left- Friars & Nuns
Bottom- 8 Nuns in Chapel
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