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Lot Essay
Martín Ramírez (1895-1963), known for his mesmerizing, dynamic line drawings, employed spit and oatmeal to bind papers into larger artmaking surfaces. In Untitled (Seven Stags), the artist adhered construction paper and a thick repurposed cream-colored stock to create a visually active ground. The composition's central stag, which dominates the larger sheet, stares at the viewer. His furrowed brows and large eyes are anthropomorphized; his antlers gracefully echo the thin lines that run up his back and denote his spine. His blue and yellow ears pop forward on the page. A proscenium of lyrical lines create space and depth around the animal. The image of the stag, his head lowered and nose flared, is echoed six more times along the lower edge of the drawing. This chorus of beasts is in conversation with the central figure; their yellow bodies form a visual tie to the color of the construction paper.
Ramírez drew what he knew, from animals and horsemen he saw in his native Mexico to railroads and cars that marked his early experiences in the United States. The artist was born in Jalisco, Mexico, and spent five years as a sharecropper and journeyman laborer in the municipality of Tototlan before purchasing a small piece of land near his native town. He had difficulty repaying the loans used to buy his land, so he left for the United States in search of temporary work on August 24, 1925. In January 1931 Ramírez was picked up by the San Joaquin County, California, police and sent to the Stockton State Hospital with a diagnosis of manic depression (later changed to “dementia praecox, catatonic form,” now known as schizophrenia). Transferred to the DeWitt State Hospital in Auburn, California, in 1948, he remained institutionalized until his death on February 17, 1963.
After the artist’s arrival at DeWitt, psychologist Dr. Tarmo Pasto noticed Ramírez’s drawings and began to provide the artist with a steady supply of paper and pencils, to preserve his work and to arrange exhibitions. The first show of Ramírez’s art took place in 1951 at the E. B. Crocker Art Gallery in Sacramento, California. In November 1952 Pasto mounted an exhibition of Ramírez’s work in the women’s clubrooms of Stephens Union at the University of California, Berkeley. These early exhibitions of Ramírez’s work displayed the pieces as the output of an anonymous institutionalized schizophrenic, presenting the objects as curious looks into their creator’s mental state rather than as art.
In 1973, Phyllis Kind Gallery in Chicago changed how the world saw Ramírez’s work. Kind, along with gallerist Karen Lennox, mounted the first exhibition of the drawings to focus on the formal qualities of Ramírez’s art rather than on his mental state. The artist’s name and artistry were celebrated. Untitled (Seven Stags) was included in this 1973 exhibition, and was one of the first Ramírez drawings Lennox encountered. Lennox believes it had been previously exhibited in one of the 1950s shows, as “when the initial estate arrived at Phyllis Kind Gallery, [this piece] was mounted on card. It was the gallery’s assumption that the pieces had been mounted for the Crocker show” (personal communication from Lennox, 12 November 2015).
Ramírez’s work has been the subject of major exhibitions at Moore College of Art in Philadelphia, the Centro Cultural de Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City, the American Folk Art Museum in New York, and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid. In 2015, the United States Postal Service launched a postage stamp featuring Ramírez’s drawings; one of the works selected features a stag in a proscenium.
Untitled (Seven Stags) has been granted clear title by the artist's estate.
Ramírez drew what he knew, from animals and horsemen he saw in his native Mexico to railroads and cars that marked his early experiences in the United States. The artist was born in Jalisco, Mexico, and spent five years as a sharecropper and journeyman laborer in the municipality of Tototlan before purchasing a small piece of land near his native town. He had difficulty repaying the loans used to buy his land, so he left for the United States in search of temporary work on August 24, 1925. In January 1931 Ramírez was picked up by the San Joaquin County, California, police and sent to the Stockton State Hospital with a diagnosis of manic depression (later changed to “dementia praecox, catatonic form,” now known as schizophrenia). Transferred to the DeWitt State Hospital in Auburn, California, in 1948, he remained institutionalized until his death on February 17, 1963.
After the artist’s arrival at DeWitt, psychologist Dr. Tarmo Pasto noticed Ramírez’s drawings and began to provide the artist with a steady supply of paper and pencils, to preserve his work and to arrange exhibitions. The first show of Ramírez’s art took place in 1951 at the E. B. Crocker Art Gallery in Sacramento, California. In November 1952 Pasto mounted an exhibition of Ramírez’s work in the women’s clubrooms of Stephens Union at the University of California, Berkeley. These early exhibitions of Ramírez’s work displayed the pieces as the output of an anonymous institutionalized schizophrenic, presenting the objects as curious looks into their creator’s mental state rather than as art.
In 1973, Phyllis Kind Gallery in Chicago changed how the world saw Ramírez’s work. Kind, along with gallerist Karen Lennox, mounted the first exhibition of the drawings to focus on the formal qualities of Ramírez’s art rather than on his mental state. The artist’s name and artistry were celebrated. Untitled (Seven Stags) was included in this 1973 exhibition, and was one of the first Ramírez drawings Lennox encountered. Lennox believes it had been previously exhibited in one of the 1950s shows, as “when the initial estate arrived at Phyllis Kind Gallery, [this piece] was mounted on card. It was the gallery’s assumption that the pieces had been mounted for the Crocker show” (personal communication from Lennox, 12 November 2015).
Ramírez’s work has been the subject of major exhibitions at Moore College of Art in Philadelphia, the Centro Cultural de Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City, the American Folk Art Museum in New York, and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid. In 2015, the United States Postal Service launched a postage stamp featuring Ramírez’s drawings; one of the works selected features a stag in a proscenium.
Untitled (Seven Stags) has been granted clear title by the artist's estate.