The Hidden Art Twentieth and Twentyfirst Century Selftaught Artists From the Audrey B Heckler
Martín Ramírez (1895 - 1963)
Untitled (Collaged Woman Atop Tiered Mound), 1953
Graphite, tempera, crayon and collage on paper
29 x xviii inches
Mexican, 20th century.
Born 1895, Jalisco, Mexico; died 1963, Auburn, California.
Born in Tepatilan, Jalisco, Mexico in 1895, Martín Ramírez was a rancher and a family human being, until poverty and political violence drove him to California in search of migrant work in 1925. Like many Mexican immigrants, he suffered great hardship, only his story is anything but typical. In 1931 Ramírez was diagnosed with catatonic schizophrenia and committed to state hospitals, first in Stockton, and then at the DeWitt State Hospital in Auburn. He began to draw in the 1930s, using unlikely materials culled from hospital supplies. Erroneously labeled a chronic mute, Ramírez flourished as an artist until his death in 1963, producing an impressive body of over 300 big-scale, mixed-media drawings. This oeuvre would have been lost if not for the advocacy Dr. Tarmo Pasto, a Sacramento psychiatrist who met the artist after his movement to DeWitt. Pasto offered him encouragement, some supplies, and later archived and exhibited his work.
Ramírez'southward creative ingenuity was staggering. Patching together long, rectangular sheets of thin operating-table paper with mashed potatoes and spit, he drew with pencil, crayon, charcoal made from burned matchsticks. He made paint by chewing on colored newsprint, and so spitting information technology into bootleg bowls of hardened oatmeal. His isolated figures and scenes are oft dramatically framed by his signature proscenium device: lively gauchos from the Mexico of his youth, stately Madonnas, trains disappearing into underworld tunnels, animals, a lone figure seated in contemplation, possibly a self-portrait. Onto more than complex works, he layered collaged images from print sources.
Recently discovered drawings made in the concluding years of his life reveal a bolder use of color, and riskier, more abstract compositions driven past his confident, undulating line.
Resonating with visual and symbolic elements from the creative person's indigenous Mexican roots, his Cosmic sensibility, his travels, and his pure dearest of line, color and form, Ramírez'south accomplishment is far greater than the sum of these singled-out parts.
- Jenifer P. Borum
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2017
Martín Ramírez: His Life in Pictures, Institute of Contemporary Fine art, Los Angeles
2010
Martín Ramírez: Reframing Confinement, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid
2009
Martín Ramírez: The Terminal Works, The American Folk Art Museum, New York
2007
Martín Ramírez, The American Folk Art Museum, New York
1989
Martín Ramírez: Pintor Mexicano, Centro Cultural/Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico Metropolis
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2019
Memory Palaces: Inside the Collection of Audrey B. Heckler, American Folk Fine art Museum, New York, NY
2018
Outliers and American Vanguard Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
2013
Great and Mighty Things: Outsider Art from the Sheldon and Jill Bonovitz Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
2012
Accidental Genius: Art From the Anthony Petullo Collection, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee
2006
Inner Worlds Outside, traveling exhibition, Sala de Exposiciones de la Fundacíon "La Caixa," Madrid; WhiteChapel Gallery, London; Irish gaelic Museum of Modernistic Art, Dublin
2005
Dubuffet & Art Brut, traveling exhibition, Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf; Drove de 50'Art Brut, Lausanne; Musée d'art moderne Lille Métropole, Villeneuve d'Ascq
1992
Parallel Visions: Modern Artists and Outsider Fine art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles
1985
The Heart of Creation: The Fine art of Martín Ramírez, Goldie Paley Gallery, Moore Higher of Art, Philadelphia
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
The American Folk Art Museum, New York
The Anthony Petullo Colletion, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee
Collection de fifty'Art Brut, Lausanne
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
Guggenheim Museum, New York
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
SELECTED BIOGRAPHY
Longhauser, Elsa,Martín Ramírez: His Life In Pictures, exhibition catalogue, Constitute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2017
Rousseau, Valérie and 29 boosted scholars,The Hidden Art: Twentieth and 20-first Century Self-Taught Artists from the Audrey B. Heckler Collection, Skira/Rizzoli, 2017
Stone, Lisa, ed.,Accidental Genius: Fine art From the Anthony Petullo Drove, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, 2012.
Ramirez, Martin, Martín Ramírez: Reframing Confinement, exhibition catalogue, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, 2010.
Anderson, Brooke D., Martín Ramírez, Richard Rodriguez, and Wayne Thiebaud, Martín Ramírez: The Last Works, Ricco/Maresca Gallery, exhibition catalogue, New York, 2008.
Anderson, Brooke D., Victor Yard. Espinosa, and Martín Ramirez,Martín Ramírez, exhibition catalogue, American Folk Fine art Museum, New York, 2007.
Inner Worlds Outside, exhibition catalogue, Fundacíon "La Caixa," WhiteChapel Gallery, Irish Museum of Modern Art & Ediciones El Viso, Madrid, 2006.
Dubuffet & Art Brut, exhibition catalogue, 5 Continents Editions & Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf, 2005.
Tuchman, Maurice and Ballad South. Eliel,Parallel Visions: Modern Artists and Outsider Art, exhibition catalogue, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 1992.
Martín Ramírez: Pintor Mexicano (1885-1960), exhibition catalogue, Centro Cultural/Arte Contemporáneo, United mexican states City, 1989.
Bowman, Russell, et al.,The Heart of Creation: The Art of Martín Ramírez, exhibition catalogue, Goldie Paley Gallery, Moore College of Art, Philadelphia, 1985.
Source: https://www.edlingallery.com/artists/martin-ramirez
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