Campesino

Artist Alfredo Ramos Martínez (1871 - 1946)

Datec. 1930

MediumSilkscreen

Dimensions23 x 18 in. (58.4 x 45.7 cm)

ClassificationsPrintmaking

Credit LineGift of the Hilbert Collection

Object number2019.372

DescriptionAlfredo Ramos Martinez was a celebrated Mexican artist and educator who lived in California from 1930 until he passed away in 1946. His modernist works of traditional Mexican people and culture are considered international treasures. In addition to creating easel paintings, drawings and graphics, he produced a number of murals.

Born in 1871 in Monterrey, Mexico, Ramos Martinez’s artistic talents were evident from an early age. He received 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. He later studied in Paris, where he saw firsthand the works of Van Gogh, Matisse, Monet and many others, absorbing their influences as he traveled around Europe. It was in France that he began drawing and painting on newspapers, an inexpensive way to obtain paper that also provided an interesting background.

Returning to Mexico in 1910 as the Mexican Revolution was beginning and the spirit of change was in the air, Ramos Martinez established a series of Open Air Schools of Painting. These schools flourished, and the artist was dubbed “the Father of Modern Mexican Painting.” He and his family relocated to Los Angeles in 1930, and his work was championed by influential Hollywood collectors, including Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, Alfred Hitchcock and others. He also created several noted murals in California, including “The Flower Vendors” in the Margaret Fowler Garden at Scripps College, Claremont, Calif., commissioned by the college at the urging of Millard Sheets.

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