Alfredo Ramos Martínez (1871-1946)

Dalzell Hatfield Gallery, Los Angeles (acquired from the artist)
Private Collection (acquired from the above circa 1950)
Thence by descent to the present owner

Maria Sodi de Ramos Martínez, Alfredo Ramos Martínez, Los Angeles, 1949, p. 8, illustrated
Alfredo Ramos Martínez (exhibition catalogue), Louis Stern Gallery, Beverly Hills, October 1991- January 6, 1992, p. 14, discussed

This painting is still stretched on its original stretcher. The paint layer is stable, un-varnished and clean. There appear to be no retouches. This is clearly a work in perfect condition which should be hung as is. This condition report has been provided courtesy of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.
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Of the plastic artists working in Mexico at the beginning of the Modern era, perhaps the most underappreciated is Alfredo Ramos Martínez.  Like his European counterparts who eschewed the rigid academic environment afforded by the classical fine art academies at the end of the 19^th century, Ramos Martínez rebelled against conventional teaching methods, preferring to paint from nature "al aire libre." 

Ramos Martínez' growing talent was recognized by Phoebe Hearst, the daughter of newspaper entrepreneur William R. Hearst, who agreed to pay a monthly stipend for the artist to pursue his studies in Paris, the center of the art world.  During his decade-long stay in Paris (1900-1909), Ramos Martínez was able to fraternize with the likes of Auguste Rodin, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Joaquín Sorolla, among others. The exchange of ideas with these and other artists, poets and intellectuals allowed Ramos Martínez to keep abreast of the direction of turn-of-the-century art.  Indeed, with Alfredo's award of the gold medal at the 1906 Salon d'Automne, Phoebe Hearst ended her monthly stipend and informed the painter that he was now capable of earning an income from his art.

Margarita Nieto states, "By 1909, the political and social upheavals in Mexico prompted his return.  Unlike his compatriot Diego Rivera, who returned from Paris at the end of the revolution, Ramos came back to Mexico on the eve of the revolution. Hailed as an innovator by the students of the Academy, he would soon become the Assistant Director of the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes (ENBA) the former Academy.  Shortly after, he assumed directorship of the School and, in 1913, fulfilled his dream of founding the Open Air School of Painting." ^[1]  By the time his tenure expired as the director, Ramos Martínez founded twenty-seven open-air art schools whose professors included Rufino Tamayo, Jean Charlot, Fernando Leal and Díaz de León.  Artists from Mexico and around the world traveled to that country to capture its landscape and costumed inhabitants on canvas as well as through the camera lens (see Fig 1).

By the late 1920s, Ramos Martínez was making great strides with his re-acquaintance of Mexican imagery.  However, in 1928, his new bride María Sodi Romero gave birth to a girl who suffered from a congenital bone disease.  Distraught over her health, the newlyweds headed north to Rochester, Minnesota where physicians at the Mayo Clinic hoped to provide a cure.  Upon hearing their doctor's advice that the best thing for the young María would be to live in a dry climate and be near a medical facility throughout her childhood, the couple moved to Los Angeles, California.

In short order Ramos Martínez quickly earned painting commissions as well as profitable mural commissions from San Diego to Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and as far north as San Francisco. Nieto states, "Also, perhaps fueled by his absence from his homeland, he began to paint highly stylized scenes taken from Mexican life.  Nostalgic but in no way sentimental, the compositions captured his recollections of daily life with palettes dominated by umbers, ochres and deep greens and punctuated by touches of red or orange or yellow.  This vocabulary struck a chord with Southern California collectors." ^[2] 

La India del lago, painted circa 1938, exemplifies the pictorial esthetic that Ramos Martínez sought in his Mexican oeuvre.  Standing before the viewer, the flower carrier holds in her hand and on her head a bounty of flowers, the allegorical symbol of not only Spring personified, but also the symbol of hope and the cycle of life.  Wearing a bold orange-red blouse, the sitter is by a rolling landscape that could be found in virtually any corner of Mexico.  Behind her, in the distance, lies a lake.  Is it Texcoco, the famed lake of Aztec lore?   Perhaps it is the Lago de Pátzcuaro, in Michoacán to the west of Mexico City?  The ambiguity of the painting's specific location is as purposeful as its nationality.  The goal that Ramos Martínez achieved was capturing the spirit of his homeland as well as that of the Mexica, who ruled prior to the arrival of the Spaniards.


Fig. 1.  Hugo Brehme, Tehuantepec, Girls in Regional Costume, circa 1925, platinum print

[1] Alfredo Ramos Martínez & Modernismo, The Alfredo Ramos Martínez Research Project, 2009, p.29

[2] ibid., p. 49