#alfredo ramos martínez
Alfredo Ramos Martínez - Cabeza de Monja [Head of a Nun] (1934)
Tempera on newspaper (New York Times); 21 x 16 x 39 cm
Newsprint provided an inexpensive support for drawings during a straitened economic period….
Layered against an upraised hand, Ramos Martínez painted the sorrowful, contemplative profile on a page of business news. Tough stories of struggling recovery in credit markets and pleading advertisements searching for capital investments form the environment for a mournful woman whose spiritual journey in life is defined by having taken a vow of poverty.
The drawing’s style, executed in black tempera paint with white highlights and pale color washes, is typical of Ramos Martínez’s work. Linear geometry, shaded by hatched brushwork, creates the sculptural suggestion of a shallow relief. The figure has the look of an architectural ornament.
Stylized, symmetrical, streamlined, static and elegant in its appeal to timelessness, it is emblematic of Art Deco. The style first emerged in France, flourishing internationally between World War I and World War II.
Alfredo Ramos Martínez, Mariquita en Flores, 1930s, oil on canvas
Alfredo Ramos Martínez (Mexican, 1871-1946)
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