Reina1960–196348 × 16 1/2"Paint, crayon, pencil, collage on pieced paperGift of the Family of Dr. Max Dunievitz and the Estate of Martín Ramírez
© Estate of Martín Ramírez
2008.25.101547293749P4.2007.3Martín RamírezDrawings© Estate of Martín RamírezAuburnAuburnUnited StatesCaliforniaWorks on PaperAuburn
Martín Ramírez’s existence was traumatically bifurcated between his life in Jalisco, Mexico, where he had a wife, children, family, and property, and his years in the United States, spent largely in confinement. In 1925 he traveled to California in search of work, but the Great Depression left him stranded, jobless, and homeless. In 1931 he was committed to a state psychiatric hospital. Alone and unable to communicate, Ramírez was intensely drawing by the mid-1930s. Perhaps the works most deeply rooted in his place of birth are the Madonnas, of which there are around a dozen. Almost all share the same iconography: the Virgin standing on a globe with a snake writhing at her feet, holding a draped cloth in hands upraised, and wearing woven sandals. The source is probably an eighteenth-century painting of the Lady of the Immaculate Conception in the church in Capilla de Milpillas. One deviation from this traditional imagery is the starry crown, which may derive from the Virgin of Guadalupe.
In 1948 Ramírez was transferred to DeWitt State Hospital, and it was here that Tarmo Pasto, a professor of psychology and art at Sacramento State College, first became fascinated by his drawings, ultimately bringing the art to public recognition.
Stacy C. Hollander, "Untitled (Reina/Madonna)," exhibition label for Jubilation|Rumination: Life, Real and Imagined. Stacy C. Hollander, curator. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2012.Divinities, celestial themes, rising figures, and flying vessels are typical cosmic subjects from the iconographic directory of self-taught artists. Included in this category are pedestaled and idealized women, singularly or all at once goddess, star, femme fatale, Madonna, and empress. Reina (queen) by Martín Ramírez does not depict a popular Mexican figure like the Virgin of Guadalupe but a woman with the attributes and posture of the Immaculate Conception—the Virgin Mary, queen of heaven and earth. The consecration of the Immaculate Conception is an act by which someone, married or not, makes a commitment to take Mary into his own life. This piece is one of the many versions of a celebrated theme by the artist, who was known to be a devout Catholic. When represented in his works, she rarely wears the traditional blue scapular but, rather, attire displaying the recurring patterns—repetitive and hypnotic stripes, curls, and ribs—seen in the artist’s landscapes and architectural structures. The dark piece of cloth draped across her forearms suggests the letter M from his first name. Referring to another work by Ramírez with a very similar figure, art historian Víctor M. Espinosa alleges that it could be an image of the artist’s wife, for whom he may have felt guilty for abandoning: “There is something human, something not sacred in the image.”
Valérie Rousseau, “Reina,” exhibition label for Self-Taught Genius: Treasures from the American Folk Art Museum. Stacy C. Hollander and Valérie Rousseau, curators. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2014.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.orgHow does a proud Mexican man, a devout Catholic, accomplished Jinete or rider, with land, animals, wife, children, family, and hope end his life trapped in the California state mental health system, and yet become an internationally recognized master draftsman? Writing in Brooke D. Anderson’s Martín Ramírez (American Folk Art Museum, 2007), biographers Victor M. and Kristin E. Espinosa provided the context for Martín Ramírez’s remarkable story, whose existence was traumatically divided between his life as a ranchero in Tototlán, Jalisco, Mexico, and his years in the United States, spent largely in confinement. In 1925, in a climate of political unrest and economic hardship, he traveled with friends by railroad to California seeking migrant work in the mines and on the railroads to send money back to his family. Just a short time after he left Mexico, Ramírez learned of the birth of his only son, whom he was never to meet. The following year, his home and family were threatened by the civil unrest of the Cristero Rebellion which pitted Catholic rebels against the secular government. Ramírez’s family, along with countless others, lost their property, their animals, and their way of life. Mistakenly believing that his wife had sided with the Federal Army against the Church, Ramírez severed ties with his family and vowed never to return to Mexico.
The Great Depression that struck the United States soon after these events left Ramírez stranded, jobless, and homeless in an environment of increasing intolerance toward Mexican immigrants. In 1931, confused and unable to communicate in English, he was committed to a state psychiatric hospital in Stockton. The first indication of Ramírez’s prodigious talent resided in doodles sketched in the margins of letters that he sent home to his family before his confinement. By the mid-1930s, living in Stockton, he was drawing more intentionally. When he was transferred to DeWitt State Hospital in 1948, his drawings came to the attention of Dr. Tarmo Pasto, a professor of psychology and art at Sacramento State College, who became fascinated by the work, ultimately bringing it to public recognition.
Ramírez produced small drawings and monumental works that share themes of trains, tunnels, jinetes, animals, and architecture. He creates magnificent volumetric spaces through the hypnotic and majestic repetition of lines, arcs, and prosceniums. Ramírez fabricated large-scale surfaces by scavenging paper from his institutional environment: Blue-ruled paper from nursing stations, lengths of paper from examination tables, even paper cups that he flattened out, and he often included collaged elements from the many magazines available to him in the institution. The pieces were joined using a paste that he made from mashed potatoes, bread, and saliva. Burned matchsticks provided charcoal, he made pigment from chewed up colored newsprint, and he also used pencil and colored crayon. Until around 2007, Ramírez was renowned for around three hundred drawings. Following the exhibition Martín Ramiréz, presented that year at the American Folk Art Museum, an additional one hundred and thirty drawings came to light, held by descendants of Dr. Max Dunievitz, a physician who had treated Ramírez during last three years of his life.
Ramírez’s art was once perceived purely in psychological terms. Now it may be considered within his life circumstances, the memories and losses playing in an endless loop of frozen time. Perhaps the works most deeply rooted in his place of birth and faith are depictions of the Reina, or queen, particularly in the guise of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. These are fierce, powerful figures and almost all draw upon same traditional iconography that Ramírez would have known from an eighteenth-century painting in the small parish of Capilla de Milpillas, in Tepatitlán, where he was born and married. Filtered through the artist’s idiosyncratic and linear visual language, the Virgin stands on an abstracted globe and crescent moon, stamping out evil in the form of a snake writhing at her feet, wearing woven sandals, a thorny crown, and a black scarf draped over upraised hands.Stacy C. Hollander, "Untitled (Reina), c. 1960–1963" exhibition copy for American Perspectives: Stories from the American Folk Art Museum Collection. Stacy C. Hollander, curator. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2020.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.orgP4.2007.319601963 2008 25 1
Martín Ramírez’s existence was traumatically bifurcated between his life in Jalisco, Mexico, where he had a wife, children, family, and property, and his years in the United States, spent largely in confinement. In 1925 he traveled to California in search of work, but the Great Depression left him stranded, jobless, and homeless. In 1931 he was committed to a state psychiatric hospital. Alone and unable to communicate, Ramírez was intensely drawing by the mid-1930s. Perhaps the works most deeply rooted in his place of birth are the Madonnas, of which there are around a dozen. Almost all share the same iconography: the Virgin standing on a globe with a snake writhing at her feet, holding a draped cloth in hands upraised, and wearing woven sandals. The source is probably an eighteenth-century painting of the Lady of the Immaculate Conception in the church in Capilla de Milpillas. One deviation from this traditional imagery is the starry crown, which may derive from the Virgin of Guadalupe.
In 1948 Ramírez was transferred to DeWitt State Hospital, and it was here that Tarmo Pasto, a professor of psychology and art at Sacramento State College, first became fascinated by his drawings, ultimately bringing the art to public recognition.
Stacy C. Hollander, "Untitled (Reina/Madonna)," exhibition label for Jubilation|Rumination: Life, Real and Imagined. Stacy C. Hollander, curator. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2012.Divinities, celestial themes, rising figures, and flying vessels are typical cosmic subjects from the iconographic directory of self-taught artists. Included in this category are pedestaled and idealized women, singularly or all at once goddess, star, femme fatale, Madonna, and empress. Reina (queen) by Martín Ramírez does not depict a popular Mexican figure like the Virgin of Guadalupe but a woman with the attributes and posture of the Immaculate Conception—the Virgin Mary, queen of heaven and earth. The consecration of the Immaculate Conception is an act by which someone, married or not, makes a commitment to take Mary into his own life. This piece is one of the many versions of a celebrated theme by the artist, who was known to be a devout Catholic. When represented in his works, she rarely wears the traditional blue scapular but, rather, attire displaying the recurring patterns—repetitive and hypnotic stripes, curls, and ribs—seen in the artist’s landscapes and architectural structures. The dark piece of cloth draped across her forearms suggests the letter M from his first name. Referring to another work by Ramírez with a very similar figure, art historian Víctor M. Espinosa alleges that it could be an image of the artist’s wife, for whom he may have felt guilty for abandoning: “There is something human, something not sacred in the image.”
Valérie Rousseau, “Reina,” exhibition label for Self-Taught Genius: Treasures from the American Folk Art Museum. Stacy C. Hollander and Valérie Rousseau, curators. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2014.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.orgHow does a proud Mexican man, a devout Catholic, accomplished Jinete or rider, with land, animals, wife, children, family, and hope end his life trapped in the California state mental health system, and yet become an internationally recognized master draftsman? Writing in Brooke D. Anderson’s Martín Ramírez (American Folk Art Museum, 2007), biographers Victor M. and Kristin E. Espinosa provided the context for Martín Ramírez’s remarkable story, whose existence was traumatically divided between his life as a ranchero in Tototlán, Jalisco, Mexico, and his years in the United States, spent largely in confinement. In 1925, in a climate of political unrest and economic hardship, he traveled with friends by railroad to California seeking migrant work in the mines and on the railroads to send money back to his family. Just a short time after he left Mexico, Ramírez learned of the birth of his only son, whom he was never to meet. The following year, his home and family were threatened by the civil unrest of the Cristero Rebellion which pitted Catholic rebels against the secular government. Ramírez’s family, along with countless others, lost their property, their animals, and their way of life. Mistakenly believing that his wife had sided with the Federal Army against the Church, Ramírez severed ties with his family and vowed never to return to Mexico.
The Great Depression that struck the United States soon after these events left Ramírez stranded, jobless, and homeless in an environment of increasing intolerance toward Mexican immigrants. In 1931, confused and unable to communicate in English, he was committed to a state psychiatric hospital in Stockton. The first indication of Ramírez’s prodigious talent resided in doodles sketched in the margins of letters that he sent home to his family before his confinement. By the mid-1930s, living in Stockton, he was drawing more intentionally. When he was transferred to DeWitt State Hospital in 1948, his drawings came to the attention of Dr. Tarmo Pasto, a professor of psychology and art at Sacramento State College, who became fascinated by the work, ultimately bringing it to public recognition.
Ramírez produced small drawings and monumental works that share themes of trains, tunnels, jinetes, animals, and architecture. He creates magnificent volumetric spaces through the hypnotic and majestic repetition of lines, arcs, and prosceniums. Ramírez fabricated large-scale surfaces by scavenging paper from his institutional environment: Blue-ruled paper from nursing stations, lengths of paper from examination tables, even paper cups that he flattened out, and he often included collaged elements from the many magazines available to him in the institution. The pieces were joined using a paste that he made from mashed potatoes, bread, and saliva. Burned matchsticks provided charcoal, he made pigment from chewed up colored newsprint, and he also used pencil and colored crayon. Until around 2007, Ramírez was renowned for around three hundred drawings. Following the exhibition Martín Ramiréz, presented that year at the American Folk Art Museum, an additional one hundred and thirty drawings came to light, held by descendants of Dr. Max Dunievitz, a physician who had treated Ramírez during last three years of his life.
Ramírez’s art was once perceived purely in psychological terms. Now it may be considered within his life circumstances, the memories and losses playing in an endless loop of frozen time. Perhaps the works most deeply rooted in his place of birth and faith are depictions of the Reina, or queen, particularly in the guise of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. These are fierce, powerful figures and almost all draw upon same traditional iconography that Ramírez would have known from an eighteenth-century painting in the small parish of Capilla de Milpillas, in Tepatitlán, where he was born and married. Filtered through the artist’s idiosyncratic and linear visual language, the Virgin stands on an abstracted globe and crescent moon, stamping out evil in the form of a snake writhing at her feet, wearing woven sandals, a thorny crown, and a black scarf draped over upraised hands.Stacy C. Hollander, "Untitled (Reina), c. 1960–1963" exhibition copy for American Perspectives: Stories from the American Folk Art Museum Collection. Stacy C. Hollander, curator. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2020.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.org