MARTIN RAMIREZ: THE LAST WORKS

MARTIN RAMIREZ: THE LAST WORKS
American Folk Art Museum
[45 West 53rd Street
New York NY 10019]
October 7, 2008 - April 12, 2009

As I mentioned at the meeting, this Museum is having an exhibition on newly discovered works by Martin Ramirez. They had an exhibition earlier in 2007 (http://www.folkartmuseum.org/default.asp?id=1805) Click this:
FAM Ramirez Exhibition if you want to find out about this exhibition. I recently read about his background. Apparently, Martinez was originally from Jalisco, from a very religious area with dominant Spanish roots. He migrated to the US to earn money to pay off debt for buying his farm and worked on building railroad tracks in the US. Shortly after coming to the US, he heard about the violence of the Cristero Rebellion. His brother sent him a letter explaining that his farm had been ruined because of the fighting and that Ramirez's wife had saved him from being executed. But Ramirez misinterpreted the letter and thought that his wife had betrayed him and helped the secular government, which would have been a deep blow to him since he was deeply religious. Anyways, he refused to go back with his friends to Mexico, even though he had four kids there. Later on, he was put into a mental institution and eventually landed up in one in Northern California. A psychologist saw the various drawings he would create and saw his natural talent. He also became intrigued by the connection of Ramirez's drawings and his pyschological problem. He started saving his works and even put on shows.
To get a better account of his background and of his work in general click here.

Some things to think about: How did being in a completely different country affect his sanity. Is it that people just thought he was crazy because they couldn't communicate with him (since all he knew was Spanish)? Did his isolation in the mental institutions only cause him to become diagnosed with schizophrenia?

So I think I've blabbered on about it but I just wanted to share with you all!
Point is, if you're really interested in art or psychology, you might want to check this out!