Untitled (Horse and Rider)1948–196317 3/4 × 23 1/8"Crayon and pencil on pieced paperGift of David L. Davies and Jack Weeden
© Estate of Martín Ramírez2013.4.101551124544Martín RamírezDrawings© Estate of Martín RamírezAuburnAuburnUnited StatesCaliforniaWorks on PapereMuseum - Collection HighlightsAuburnA struggling rancher from Jalisco, Martín Ramírez moved to the United States in 1925 to find better work opportunities, leaving his wife and children behind. He found railroad jobs, but the Great Depression left him unemployed. Ramírez was arrested in Sacramento in 1931, and spent the last thirty-two years of his life in various mental hospitals—notably, fifteen years (1948–1963) at the Dewitt State Hospital. He drew from the mid-1930s, but his 450 surviving drawings were mainly created from 1950 to 1956. Ramírez artworks range in size from two feet to twenty feet long. Instead of systematically using the paper available, he searched for discarded scraps of paper (e.g., correspondence, memos, envelops, and newspaper) in garbage cans at night. Then, he glued these finds together with a homemade adhesive that he fashioned out of saliva and oatmeal, bread, or mashed potatoes. If Ramírez painted with conventional materials such as crayons, watercolor, and ink, he also crafted mixtures with crushed crayons and colored pencils, pink matchstick heads, charcoal (from used matchsticks), and shoe polish, diluted with fruit juices, saliva, and sometimes phlegm. James H. Durfee, a psychiatric technician at Dewitt, said that Ramírez used tips of wooden matchsticks to apply his concoctions, as well as tongue depressors to trace lines instead of the rulers that he received. In his later works, he often collaged clipped images selected from visually rich American magazines, such as the Saturday Evening Post. In short, his fastidious technique shows that the process was important for him.The oeuvre of Martín Ramírez features repetitive motifs: first and foremost, his signature wave-like lines or stripes, hypnotic and vibrant, with its illusion of movement, depth, and space; lots of horses and riders (of which he made about eighty versions); and trains emerging from tunnels, boats, trucks, and cars—all means of transportation that somehow counterweight the immobility of his hospitalization. Another celebrated theme is the queen of heaven and earth, the Virgin Mary, who takes various forms. Art historian Víctor M. Espinosa proposes that it might be an image of the artist’s wife, for whom he may have felt guilty for abandoning. He notes that “there is something human, something not sacred in the image.” Alluding to these subjects of which the artist made many versions, Espinosa suggests that his confinement might have been conducive to time-lag. These images from his homeland are frozen in his “conflicted memories.”Valérie Rousseau, exhibition label for Memory Palaces: Inside the Collection of Audrey B. Heckler. 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
The horse and rider, or jinete, is a subject that appears most frequently within Martin Ramirez’s artistic oeuvre. The figure is commonly rendered just so: isolated within a decorative box-like space that suggests a stage. It can be estimated that this work is dated 1948-1960, because Ramirez replaced his rider’s signature gun with a stylized horn in drawings dating from 1960 to 1963.
Ramirez spent the first 30-years of his life in Jalisco, Mexico, within a culture of rancheros, where horses were the primary conveyance, and horse and pistol were two very important symbols of masculinity and independence. At that time, owning a horse made a great difference to one’s economic survival—it provided a means for Ramirez to go to town every week to sell hens, eggs, peppers, and other vegetables. Additionally, the horse was a way for Ramirez to go out and hunt, an activity that he not only loved, but also helped feed his family. According to neighbor Guadalupe Villa, Ramirez was a particularly skilled horseman. He remembers clearly that, "Martin was a man who really knew how to ride a horse. His brother [Atanacio], like everybody in the rancho, could ride a horse, but few were able to do what Martin did with his beautiful Colorado retinto [bright bay horse]." (Quoted in "The Life of Martin Ramirez," Victor M. Espinosa and Kristin E. Espinosa; Martin Ramirez, Brooke Davis Anderson, 2007, p.21)
Ramirez left Mexico in 1925 with the aim of finding work in the United States to support his wife and children in Jalisco; however, the economic circumstances of the Great Depression prevented him from securing employment. Confused and unable to communicate in English, Ramirez was picked up by the police in 1931 and committed to DeWitt State Hospital in Auburn, CA, where he was diagnosed as a catatonic schizophrenic and confined until his death in 1963. It was at DeWitt that Ramirez began to draw. Trains and tunnels, Mexican and Californian landscapes, Madonnas, animals, and jinete are prevalent subjects within Ramirez’s body of work. Reproduced over and over again, these familiar motifs were tweaked in subtle ways through variations in scale, material, color, and experimentation with abstract framing devices. Ramirez would often supplement his drawings with found materials—discarded printed matter, flattened paper cups, exam table cover sheets, shoe polish, and food—adhered to his compositions using homemade adhesives and pigments. Thoughtfully composed and vigorously executed, Ramirez’s work reveals an acute aesthetic and technical sensibility—indications of a masterful 20th century Modern artist.19481963 2013 4 1 A struggling rancher from Jalisco, Martín Ramírez moved to the United States in 1925 to find better work opportunities, leaving his wife and children behind. He found railroad jobs, but the Great Depression left him unemployed. Ramírez was arrested in Sacramento in 1931, and spent the last thirty-two years of his life in various mental hospitals—notably, fifteen years (1948–1963) at the Dewitt State Hospital. He drew from the mid-1930s, but his 450 surviving drawings were mainly created from 1950 to 1956. Ramírez artworks range in size from two feet to twenty feet long. Instead of systematically using the paper available, he searched for discarded scraps of paper (e.g., correspondence, memos, envelops, and newspaper) in garbage cans at night. Then, he glued these finds together with a homemade adhesive that he fashioned out of saliva and oatmeal, bread, or mashed potatoes. If Ramírez painted with conventional materials such as crayons, watercolor, and ink, he also crafted mixtures with crushed crayons and colored pencils, pink matchstick heads, charcoal (from used matchsticks), and shoe polish, diluted with fruit juices, saliva, and sometimes phlegm. James H. Durfee, a psychiatric technician at Dewitt, said that Ramírez used tips of wooden matchsticks to apply his concoctions, as well as tongue depressors to trace lines instead of the rulers that he received. In his later works, he often collaged clipped images selected from visually rich American magazines, such as the Saturday Evening Post. In short, his fastidious technique shows that the process was important for him.The oeuvre of Martín Ramírez features repetitive motifs: first and foremost, his signature wave-like lines or stripes, hypnotic and vibrant, with its illusion of movement, depth, and space; lots of horses and riders (of which he made about eighty versions); and trains emerging from tunnels, boats, trucks, and cars—all means of transportation that somehow counterweight the immobility of his hospitalization. Another celebrated theme is the queen of heaven and earth, the Virgin Mary, who takes various forms. Art historian Víctor M. Espinosa proposes that it might be an image of the artist’s wife, for whom he may have felt guilty for abandoning. He notes that “there is something human, something not sacred in the image.” Alluding to these subjects of which the artist made many versions, Espinosa suggests that his confinement might have been conducive to time-lag. These images from his homeland are frozen in his “conflicted memories.”Valérie Rousseau, exhibition label for Memory Palaces: Inside the Collection of Audrey B. Heckler. 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
The horse and rider, or jinete, is a subject that appears most frequently within Martin Ramirez’s artistic oeuvre. The figure is commonly rendered just so: isolated within a decorative box-like space that suggests a stage. It can be estimated that this work is dated 1948-1960, because Ramirez replaced his rider’s signature gun with a stylized horn in drawings dating from 1960 to 1963.
Ramirez spent the first 30-years of his life in Jalisco, Mexico, within a culture of rancheros, where horses were the primary conveyance, and horse and pistol were two very important symbols of masculinity and independence. At that time, owning a horse made a great difference to one’s economic survival—it provided a means for Ramirez to go to town every week to sell hens, eggs, peppers, and other vegetables. Additionally, the horse was a way for Ramirez to go out and hunt, an activity that he not only loved, but also helped feed his family. According to neighbor Guadalupe Villa, Ramirez was a particularly skilled horseman. He remembers clearly that, "Martin was a man who really knew how to ride a horse. His brother [Atanacio], like everybody in the rancho, could ride a horse, but few were able to do what Martin did with his beautiful Colorado retinto [bright bay horse]." (Quoted in "The Life of Martin Ramirez," Victor M. Espinosa and Kristin E. Espinosa; Martin Ramirez, Brooke Davis Anderson, 2007, p.21)
Ramirez left Mexico in 1925 with the aim of finding work in the United States to support his wife and children in Jalisco; however, the economic circumstances of the Great Depression prevented him from securing employment. Confused and unable to communicate in English, Ramirez was picked up by the police in 1931 and committed to DeWitt State Hospital in Auburn, CA, where he was diagnosed as a catatonic schizophrenic and confined until his death in 1963. It was at DeWitt that Ramirez began to draw. Trains and tunnels, Mexican and Californian landscapes, Madonnas, animals, and jinete are prevalent subjects within Ramirez’s body of work. Reproduced over and over again, these familiar motifs were tweaked in subtle ways through variations in scale, material, color, and experimentation with abstract framing devices. Ramirez would often supplement his drawings with found materials—discarded printed matter, flattened paper cups, exam table cover sheets, shoe polish, and food—adhered to his compositions using homemade adhesives and pigments. Thoughtfully composed and vigorously executed, Ramirez’s work reveals an acute aesthetic and technical sensibility—indications of a masterful 20th century Modern artist.