Alfredo Ramos Martínez, often considered the “father of modern Mexican art”, was a prolific painter, muralist, and educator who played a key role in the reconfiguration of art schools and Mexican modernism during the crisis of the Revolution (1910). Ramos Martínez’s Mancacoyota (1930) renders the idea of a proud Indigenous woman, full of a nobility that stems from her native roots. With an inquisitive gaze, the woman – reluctant, serene, and suspicious at the same time – observes us with a monumental wall of cactus as a background. This portrait blends the newly found admiration for native traditions with the idea of a new national identity. A form of nationalism, embodied by a Mexican impressionistic school of painting, can be traced clearly in the red blossoms in the back and the delicate strokes of her face. Probably painted after Ramos Martínez had established himself in Los Angeles, Mancacoyota shows a strong native woman that prototyped indigenous femininity as a worthy subject for the arts.
This is the first time the work of Alfredo Ramos Martínez is presented at Biennale Arte.
—Eva Posas
