Mexico City.- The Museo de la Ciudad de México (Museum of Mexico City) is proud to present “Ricardo Martinez” on view at the museum until October 30th. A little over two years after his death the Museum of the City of Mexico opened this new exhibition on July 13th, the first posthumous retrospective and the most important retrospective of the artist’s work to date. Mounted in the newly refurbished top floor of the museum, the exhibition comprises works from the Foundation Ricardo Martinez, the Museum of Modern Art, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the Mexican Art Gallery, Bancomer Foundation and about 15 private collections. The exhibition features more than 110 pieces, including oil paintings, sketches, photographs and some of his personal collection of pre-Hispanic figures.
One of the main objectives of the exhibition is to locate and publicize the work of Ricardo Martinez, which due to lengthy active period, ranging from the late forties until shortly before his death in January 2009. True to his own style, Ricardo Martinez was an artist who kept out of mainstream and artistic trends of the twentieth century, and although they took items he used in his work, he always retained an independence that is perhaps what gives a certain timelessness to his painting. Thus in the exhibit, visitors can glimpse features resembling the Mexican School of Painting, the landscapes of Dr. Atl, the style of the great muralists, the stroke of Hispanic Soriano and monumentality. Always figurative, the selection of the exhibited work allows the audience into the world of Ricardo Martinez. Most canvases are displayed accompanied by small sketches that show the process of creation, in which the colors change at the last moment, details are added or removed and perspectives change.
The search for identity seems to be a constant in the painting of Ricardo Martinez, the monumentality of form, color palette and lack of background scenery give greater weight to the human form and became his signature style, seen throughout his artistic career. Large canvases surround the visitor with sober colors and geometric pyramidal structures that invade the halls of the Museum of Mexico City, the serenity of Martinez’s work appropriate for the space in unique ways. Born in Mexico City, Ricardo Martinez was educated abroad. After returning to Mexico, Martinez studied law at the National University of Mexico but decided instead to become a painter. He was a self-taught artist who never received any formal training. He exhibited for the first time at the Galeria de Arte Mexicano, Mexico City in 1942 and has since enjoyed international recognition. After a period of still life painting his work evolved to a form of monumental non-narrarive figural painting. His style can be related to Rufino Tamayo.
The Museo de la Ciudad de Mexico (MCM) is a public museum located on Avenida Pino Suarez No. 30, just two blocks from the Plaza de la Constitución (Zócalo). The museum is a beautiful colonial palace which dates back to 1536. Since then the building has been remodeled and modified many times, both in appearance and in its operation, having served from the palace of noble families to neighborhood. In 1960 the Federal District Department decreed that the property should become the official home of the Museum of Mexico City, giving it its current name. The museum has four rooms for temporary exhibitions as well as a permanent exhibition covering the history of Mexico City and the studio of the painter Joaquín Clausell on the top floor. The museum also contains the Jaime Torres Bodet Library (the largest Collection of literature about Mexico City). Visit the museum’s website at … http://www.cultura.df.gob.mx/