拍品专文
We are grateful to María Ramos Martínez Bolster, Margarita Nieto and Louis Stern for their assistance in confirming the authenticity of these works. This work will be included in the forthcoming monograph of the artist Alfredo Ramos Martínez & Modernismo being published by The Alfredo Ramos Martínez Research Project.
"Our Indians," Alfredo Ramos Martínez declared, "shaping their clay and decorating it, are as great in their artistic honesty as Michelangelo and Titian. They put into the work all their being. It is as though they themselves became part of the same clay. Our people are all love, all spontaneity, in the sparkling representation of their art." "A painter of melancholy" as the poet Rubén Darío who shared an attic with the artist during his Paris stay described him--Alfredo Ramos Martínez was undoubtedly a "painter of poems" as the great modernist poet believed.
Ramos Martínez's emblematic paintings and murals gained for him great recognition during his prolific lifetime. His elegant but strong compositions filled with the faces of the indigenous people of Mexico--the countrymen he had left behind as he settled in California, were his enduring inspiration. Over and over again he professed his admiration for their struggles and dignity. In Procession, the artist evokes the monumental figures of his many public murals and large canvases and renders two separate compositions intended as pendants. The figures of tall men and beautiful women against a rich landscape of impossibly verdant plants and exquisite flowers animate the space. They may be on their way to market as many of the figures carry colorful baskets laden with fruits or on their way to a festive celebration as they are all dressed in their finest. In this virtuosic intimate composition, Ramos Martínez yearns for the simple life and intense beauty of his homeland and its people and shares a personal nostalgia that never left him.
"Our Indians," Alfredo Ramos Martínez declared, "shaping their clay and decorating it, are as great in their artistic honesty as Michelangelo and Titian. They put into the work all their being. It is as though they themselves became part of the same clay. Our people are all love, all spontaneity, in the sparkling representation of their art." "A painter of melancholy" as the poet Rubén Darío who shared an attic with the artist during his Paris stay described him--Alfredo Ramos Martínez was undoubtedly a "painter of poems" as the great modernist poet believed.
Ramos Martínez's emblematic paintings and murals gained for him great recognition during his prolific lifetime. His elegant but strong compositions filled with the faces of the indigenous people of Mexico--the countrymen he had left behind as he settled in California, were his enduring inspiration. Over and over again he professed his admiration for their struggles and dignity. In Procession, the artist evokes the monumental figures of his many public murals and large canvases and renders two separate compositions intended as pendants. The figures of tall men and beautiful women against a rich landscape of impossibly verdant plants and exquisite flowers animate the space. They may be on their way to market as many of the figures carry colorful baskets laden with fruits or on their way to a festive celebration as they are all dressed in their finest. In this virtuosic intimate composition, Ramos Martínez yearns for the simple life and intense beauty of his homeland and its people and shares a personal nostalgia that never left him.