Surviving works by self-taught artist
Martín Ramírez are few, numbering in the hundreds; drawings and collages dating before
1953 are even scarcer. In 2009, a
Library of Congress archivist found what is considered the fifteenth known drawing of a
Madonna by outsider artist, Martín Ramírez, during routine collection processing. With the large drawing support assembled from the blank sides of 22 pieces of junk mail including gardening advertisements and deconstructed business envelopes, a black-inked postal cancellation stamp provides the 1951 time frame and the
Auburn, California location.
Entering the
United States from
Mexico in 1925, Martín Ramírez labored for the
California railroad and mining industries into the
1930s, when suffering from a range of illnesses, he was hospitalized. He remained in the California public hospital system for the rest of his life. During the late
1920s Ramírez began to draw using found materials; in 1948 psychologist and art professor Tarno
Pasto began to supply Ramírez with artist materials; and in the early
1950s, Pasto received funding to exhibit several of Ramírez’ works.
Ramírez’ images typically contain repetitive shapes and concentric waves in the form of hills and valleys, roads, and what appears in many instances to be railroad tracks. Figures are religious, human, and animal, seemingly pulled from his life experiences such as the cultural and religious iconography he would have absorbed from a childhood and adulthood spent in
Tepatitlán, Jalisco, Mexico, including his local church, and later experiences working on the railroads and mines in the United States.
The Library of Congress Untitled (Madonna in landscape with cars), ca. 1951 depicts a crowned Madonna figure rising up out of a tunnel, surrounded by what appears to be curving roadways complete with small cars.
The Madonna figure stands directly on a large blue globe, with a snake curled at her feet. Her arms are raised in the orans position, with upper arms close to body and hands outstretched. The hands are positioned with index fingers each pointing upward. The Madonna figure is clothed in traditional,
Mexican dress including a colorfully-striped blouse, puffed sleeves, and peplum skirt, together with a striped rebozo (long, flat garment worn by
Mexican women) or pall (funerary cloth associated with death or the
Christian Easter holiday) hanging from her upturned arms.
When discovered at the Library of Congress, the Ramírez’ Untitled (Madonna in landscape with cars) was in very poor condition.
Having been rolled previously, the then-flattened cylinder of paper showed multiple long tears and large fractured areas where the varying support papers had aged differently. Additionally, the work showed extensive loss in the support and media layers due to insect damage. To determine the best approach to conservation treatment for such a unique work, honoring the artist’s intent and choices was foremost in decision-making. Generally, the main conservation challenge included balancing stabilization treatment with overall legibility.
Treatment techniques and conservation materials were chosen that allowed the work to be structurally sound and visually unified.
Though the colored media on Untitled (Madonna in landscape with cars) appeared initially to be rendered in watercolor, crayons, and/or colored pencils over graphite under drawing, preliminary analyses at the Library of Congress reveal other possibilities. Firstly, a survey containing all published first-hand accounts from the nurses, doctors, artists, and visiting students regarding Ramírez’ working methods was conducted.
Media and adhesive use, as well as methods of media application were noted. Secondly, samples of the handmade, masticated pastes were taken from the verso for identification, and using non-destructive methods of analysis, elemental analysis of all media was performed. Using known vintage media samples were then used for comparison.
This talk will include discussions regarding a plausible scenario of Ramírez’ working methods and likely materials and media used as determined through personal observation, examination, and published first-hand accounts; how compensation of lost media and significant structural losses were guided by curatorial input, including whether to fill or inpaint and to what extent to leave existing losses intact; and the history of and circuitous route taken by the Ramírez drawing before and after arriving at the Library of Congress.
- published: 20 May 2015
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