Creating Connections: Self-Taught Artists in the Rosenthal Collection Audio Exhibition
Martín Ramírez (American, born in Mexico, 1895–1963), Untitled, Super Chief, 1954, graphite pencil and pastel (est.) on paper, 55 9/16 x 51 1/2 in. (141.2 x 130.8 cm), Collection of Richard Rosenthal, © Estate of Martín Ramírez courtesy of the Ricco/Maresca Gallery
Verbal Description
Hello, my name is Franck Mercurio, and I am the museum’s publications editor. I will be reading the verbal description for Untitled, Super Chief by Martín Ramírez in Creating Connections: Self-Taught Artists in the Rosenthal Collection.
Martín Ramírez was a Mexico-born American artist who lived from 1895 to 1963. Created in 1954, his drawing, Untitled, Super Chief, is graphite pencil and pastel on paper. It is in the collection of Richard Rosenthal.
The drawing, Untitled, Super Chief, is vertically oriented and measures 55 and nine-sixteenths by 51 and one-half inches or 141.2 by 130.8 centimeters. In this picture, Martín Ramírez captures a railway tunnel using straight and curved black lines to create (a sense of) depth. The center of the image is taken up by the large elongated arched shape of the tunnel, with evenly spaced lines echoing its shape, starting at a red and blue entrance and radiating up to the top of the image. On each side of the tunnel are six rows lined with decorative, abstracted motifs. What may be a series of arched openings with waterfalls appears to the tunnel’s right. On the left are repeated elements that look like wheels on triangular legs. Along the bottom of the image, at the left, a blue and red train emerges from another tunnel and is about to take a sharp left turn into the large central underpass. Just to the right of the opening, we see what appears to be a narrow waterway disappearing under the tunnel wall.
Label Text
Hello, my name is Franck Mercurio, and I am the museum’s publications editor. I will be reading the label for Untitled, Super Chief by Martín Ramírez in Creating Connections: Self-Taught Artists in the Rosenthal Collection.
Martín Ramírez was a Mexico-born American artist who lived from 1895 to 1963. Created in 1954, his drawing, Untitled, Super Chief, is graphite pencil and pastel on paper. It is in the collection of Richard Rosenthal.
Martín Ramírez made exquisite choices in line, patterns, and materials. The tunnel at the center of this dramatic work creates the illusion of deeply receding perspective that pulls you in. The tilting train, requiring an abrupt turn to enter the tunnel, seems to barrel ahead at lightning speed.
When the farm he owned was failing, Ramírez migrated from Los Altos Jalisco, Mexico, to El Paso, Texas, to earn money to bring back to his family. But in 1931, he was confined for life to a California state hospital, where he insisted he was not mentally ill and simply could not speak English. Scholar Leslie Umberger has written, “The images Ramírez drew speak of a yearned-for homeland, and seemingly chart the self-hood and identity he feared losing hold of in a place that had stripped him of everything.” For this artist, who could see passing trains from the windows of his ward, the locomotive may have represented freedom and the way home.