Louis Stern Fine Arts is pleased to present a curated selection of paintings and works on paper by the “Father of Mexican Modernism,” Alfredo Ramos Martínez (1871-1946). An influential educator, painter, and muralist, Ramos Martínez’s artistic vocabulary expresses his memories and devotion to his home country of Mexico, as well as the influence of his adopted home in the United States.
Ramos Martínez’s daughter was born with a serious congenital bone disease, instigating his move to the United States in 1929 to seek treatment for her condition. Ramos Martínez’s work found many admirers and patrons in California, where he primarily lived and worked until his death in 1946. Soon after his relocation to the United States, Ramos Martínez’s style evolved from European-style portraits and florals into a distinctive, simplified, Art Deco-inspired style, with subject matter mainly focused on the landscape of rural Mexico and the humanity of its people. These fond, nostalgic scenes provided the artist with a sense of comfort and connection to his home country in the midst of his new and unfamiliar surroundings in the US. Louis Stern Fine Arts is proud to serve as the exclusive representative of the Estate of Alfredo Ramos Martínez.
Works by Alfredo Ramos Martínez are held in numerous public collections, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, Los Angeles; Museo de Historia Mexicana, Monterrey; Museo Soumaya, Mexico City; Museo de Arte Moderno de México (MAM), Mexico City; Museo Nacional de Arte, INBA, Mexico City; S Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Santa Barbara Museum of Art; Philadelphia Museum of Art; and The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
A selection of paintings and works on paper by other Latin American Modernist Masters—Jean Charlot, Gunther Gerzso, and Alejandro Xul Solar—complements the presentation of works by Ramos Martínez. Charlot, Gerzso, and Xul Solar are highly acclaimed and widely collected in international museums.
Jean Charlot (1898-1979) was a French-Russian-Mexican artist and educator. Known for his tender depictions of mothers and infants as well as his large-scale murals, Charlot’s great passion for Mayan art and indigenous Mexican culture is clearly expressed in his bold use of color and the repetition of mythical and religious themes.
Gunther Gerzso (1915-2000) was born in Mexico City during the Revolution. Known as both a Surrealist painter as well as a film and theater set designer, Gerzso lived and worked in Europe and the United States before returning to Mexico, where his style took on an abstract quality inspired by Mayan monuments and precolonial architecture.
Xul Solar (1887-1963), born Oscar Agustín Alejandro Schulz Solari, was a major Argentinian avant-garde artist and writer whose works are characterized by their mystical qualities. His work encompasses geometric forms as well as spiritual and religious imagery and themes, which he began to engage with during his early career in Europe.