Ricardo Martínez (1918-2009), Elotes

Ricardo Martínez (1918-2009)
Elotes
signed and dated 'Ricardo Martinez 57' (lower left)
oil on canvas
49 ½ x 31 ½ in. (125.7 x 80 cm.)
Painted in 1957.

Pre-Lot Text
PROPERTY FROM A DISTINGUISHED COLLECTION
Post Lot Text
1 Quoted in the film Recordando a Ricardo Martínez en su centenario. Fundación Ricardo Martínez de Hoyos y Canal 22. (November 9, 2018). My translation. Accessed March 28, 2019.
2 Zarina Martínez Lacy, “Mi padre,” in Ricardo Martínez: a 100 años de su Nacimiento (Mexico City: Fundación Ricardo Martínez de Hoyos, 2018), 27. My translation.
3 Teresa del Conde uses this pointed adjective “Rothko-esque” (akin to Mark Rothko’s color-field paintings) to describe Martínez’ diffused grounds in “La ruptura: figuras próximas y corrientes aledañas” in Siglo XX: Grandes maestros mexicanos (Monterrey: Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, 2003), 86.
4 The Contracorriente is a term coined by art historian Jorge Alberto Manrique in his article “Las contracorrientes de la pintura mexicana” in El nacionalismo y el arte mexicano: IX coloquio de historia del arte del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas (Mexico City: UNAM, 1986), 259-270, which is recognized, yet disputed by Teresa del Conde in Historia mínima del arte Mexicano en el siglo XX (Mexico City: Attame, 1994), 98-99. The Contracorriente includes easel painters Abraham Ángel, Julio Castellanos, María Izquierdo, Frida Kahlo, Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, Antonio Ruíz, Rufino Tamayo, and others whose work was largely founded in the Open-Air Schools (1913–1930s). To a lesser degree, the Contracorriente further incorporates those artists, Mexican and foreign-born, aligned with the predominantly literary movement, Contemporáneos (1928–1931). According to Manrique, the Contracorriente is largely defined, in opposition to the Muralist movement, by the incorporation of European avant-garde artistic elements into a national visual language.
5 Marco Antonio Campos, “Conversación única con Ricardo Martínez,” Proceso, September 26, 2008. Available at https://www.proceso.com.mx/202027/conversacion-unica-con-ricardo-Martínez-2. Accessed April 1, 2019.
6 Ibid. My translation.
7 Teresa del Conde, “La ruptura,” 86.
8 Ruben Bonifaz Nuño, “Introduction” in Ricardo Martínez: Recent Paintings (Phoenix: Phoenix Art Museum, 1966), 4-5.
9 Ibid., 4.