The work of the outsider artist Martín Ramírez is gaining more attention, as evidenced by this recent NY Times – Art and Mental Wellness post, which has some great links to more writing and images on Ramírez.
Ramírez’ work was originally collected by Tarmo Pasto, a psychologist, who befriended Ramírez and supported his work in the 1950s. Ramírez had left his ranch in Mexico in 1925, looking for work in California, and had then become homeless. In 1931, confused and/or unable or unwilling to communicate, he’d been picked up and committed. He spent his last three decades in psychiatric hospitals, never returning to his wife and chidren in Mexico.
- Ramírez images and story at NPR.
- Ramírez and Tarmo Pasto at The Foundation for Self-Taught American Artists.
- Ramírez Bio at Milwaukee Art Museum.
I love Ramírez’ delicious journeys into underworlds; his locomotives, horse and riders that enter tunnels and observe rich and endless territories of the soul.
Here’s a rich work (from the Foundation for Self-Taught American Artists site).
Martín Ramírez
Untitled (collage), c. 1953
mixed media on paper
36 1/4 x 18 1/2 inches
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