ALFREDO RAMOS MARTINEZ (1872-1946)

A major influence on modern Mexican art, Martinez was born in Monterrey, Mexico. By the age of ten he had received a scholarship to the Academy of Fine Arts in Mexico City. While visiting that city, Phoebe A. Hearst saw some of his watercolors and sponsored his studies in Europe. After six years of her support, one of his paintings received first prize at the French Salon. Staying on in Paris for eight more years, he associated with some of the most important artists of the day. Martinez returned to Mexico City in 1910, and two years later accepted the directorship of the Academy of Fine Arts. He served in that position on and off for twelve years and founded the first Outdoor School of Painting in Mexico, where his students included David Alfaro Siquieros, Jean Charlot and Rufino Tamayo. The Martinez family moved to Los Angeles in 1930, where the painter established many ties to San Diego. Soon after his arrival in California he had a very successful exhibition at the Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego which acquired two pieces for its permanent collection. He taught classes in the San Diego area, was friendly with many local artists and painted a number of murals locally, including a lovely fresco above the main portal of the Mary, Star of the Sea Church in La Jolla.

Dolores Del Rio

Mixed media on New York Times newspaper (May 25, 1930), circa 22 x 17" (sight) inscribed "To Mrs. Healy / Sincerely / Alfredo Ramos Martinez / Ensenada, 1930". Framed.

Martinez is famous for his works on newspaper. According to his wife, "He preferred this paper to any other because he found that it had the same quality as a fresco."

Note: In 1930 Alfredo Ramos Martinez was commissioned to paint the interiors of the newly built luxury "Hotel Riviera del Pacifico" (now the Ensenada Civic Center) in Ensenada. According to one account, "The ceilings and many walls were painted with murals by Alfredo Ramos Martínez, a fine Mexican artist whose work caused great admiration. The motifs were varied and eloquent: beautiful women, mythological themes, social themes, and a great variety of eclectic decorations which ranged from Pompeiian to Renaissance and Mudéjar". This piece was executed at that time and inscribed by the artist to the wife of Martin Healy, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the hotel. There is a notable contrast between the beauty of the portrait subject and the Great Depression era newspaper headlines.

As a young girl Dolores Del Rio had sat for a portrait by Alfredo Ramos Martinez, and was the model for Justice in Diego Rivera's first mural, La creacion, in Mexico City. By the 1930s she was a major movie star, Orson Welles' lover, and a frequent guest at the Hotel Riviera del Pacifico in Ensenada.

For more information on the Hotel Riviera del Pacifico see this article in the Journal of San Diego History and its images of the artist's designs and of Del Rio herself.