Xavier Martinez

Xavier Martinez
Self-Portrait, 1902
Born	Javier Timoteo Martinez y Orozco (1869-02-07)February 7, 1869 Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico
Died	January 13, 1943(1943-01-13) (aged 73) Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
Nationality	American (naturalized)
Other names	Xavier Tizoc Martinez, Marty Martinez
Education	California School of Design, Paris École des Beaux Arts
Known for	Fine art painting
Movement	California Tonalism
Spouse(s)	Elsie Whitaker Martinez
Patron(s)	Rosalia LaBastida de Coney, Alexander K. Coney

Xavier Martínez (February 7, 1869 – January 13, 1943) was a California artist active in the late 19th and early 20th century. He was a well-known bohemian figure in San Francisco, the East Bay, and the Monterey Peninsula and one of the co-founders of two California artists' organizations and an art gallery. He painted in a tonalist style and also produced monotypes, etchings, and silverpoint.

He was originally christened Javier Timoteo Martinez y Orozco, but later called himself Xavier Tizoc Martinez, the middle name acknowledging his Purépecha heritage. He was known to his friends as "Marty." Martinez was born in Guadalajara in 1869 to a Mexican father and a Spanish mother. Martinez began drawing his classmates and teachers at a young age while attending public school. After school he worked in his father's bookstore bookbinding and helping with printing chores. He learned French and wrote poetry, admiring the poems of Goethe, Schiller and various French poets. In his later autobiographical writings he recalled how at age ten his mother would teach him about the movements of celestial bodies.

Martinez reflected that at this age he had his first awareness that there was a rhythm in the order of things. At age 13 he began attending the Liceo de Varones (Grammar School for Men), where he studied pre-Columbian archaeology and his TaPurépechaascan heritage. He excelled in Indian designs and arts, and painted an oil copy of Entombment by Titian.