Alfredo Ramos Martinez

Alfredo Ramos Martínez
Alfredo Ramos Martínez in Los Angeles, 1941. In the background, a drawing for the unexecuted mural, Los Charros del Pueblo. ©The Alfredo Martínez Research Project.
Born	November 12, 1871 Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico
Died	November 8, 1946 Los Angeles
Nationality	Mexican
Education	Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes, Mexico City
Known for	Painting, Fresco, Murals, Drawing, Watercolor, Printmaking
Notable work	Margaret Fowler Frescoes (1945; unfinished), Scripps College, Claremont, California
Movement	Modernism, Mexican muralism, Figurative art, Portraiture, Impressionism
Awards	Grand Cross of the Order of Leopold (Belgium), 1923
Patron(s)	Phoebe Hearst, (San Francisco); William Alanson Bryan (Los Angeles); Harold Grieve (Los Angeles); Albert M. Bender (San Francisco)

Alfredo Ramos Martínez (November 12, 1871 in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico – November 8, 1946 in Los Angeles) was a painter, muralist, and educator, who lived and worked in Mexico, Paris, and Los Angeles. Considered by many to be the 'Father of Mexican Modernism', Ramos Martínez is best known for his serene and empathetic paintings of traditional Mexican people and scenes. As the renowned Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío wrote, "Ramos Martínez is one of those who paints poems; he does not copy, he interprets; he understands how to express the sorrow of the fisherman and the melancholy of the village.”

Ramos Martínez was born in 1871 in Monterrey, Nuevo León, the ninth child of Jacobo Ramos and his wife Luisa Martínez. His father was a successful merchant trading in jewelry, fine fabrics, silver, embroidered suits and hand-woven sarapes from Saltillo. All members of the Ramos Martínez family were involved with their father’s business and it was expected that the artist, too, would one day join the ranks of “honorable merchant”. However, Ramos Martínez's evident talent and instincts propelled him towards a career in the arts; a choice that his family ultimately supported.

At the age of fourteen, one of Ramos Martínez's drawings, a portrait of the governor of Monterrey was sent to an exhibition in San Antonio, Texas and won first prize. A portion of that prize included a scholarship to study at the most prestigious art school in all of Mexico, the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes (Academy of Fine Arts) in Mexico City. Thus the entire Ramos Martínez family relocated to Coyoacán, a small town on the outskirts of Mexico City.

From an early age Ramos Martínez was recognized as prodigiously talented. As a student, his preferred medium was watercolor and he won numerous awards for his achievements. Though he found the teaching methods at the Academy repressive and counter-intuitive to his more emotional plein air impulses, Ramos Martínez created a significant body of work that he was able to sell while still a student. Gratifying as his youthful accomplishments were, the news from France, and the examples of the brilliance of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists, persuaded the young painter that he needed to be in Europe to continue his education and define his career. Though his family was by no means poor, they did not have funds to support Ramos Martínez's European dream.