Martin Ramírez (1895–1963) is the 20th-century Fra Angelico. Like the 15th-century sainted Italian who combined elements of Medieval art with nascent renaissance styles, thereby transforming them into something ravishingly new and forceful, Ramírez extended a mosaic of visual traditions, among them, Mexican folk painting, Spanish liturgical woodblocks, movie magazines, travel posters, vernacular Mexican church architecture, and carved Madonnas from his home parish. In the process Ramírez created something transcendently powerful, beautiful, and new. Not only is Ramírez the best of the so-called "Self-Taught" or "Outsider" artists–baldly limiting, not to mention bogus categories considering that on some level all artists are self-taught–but he ranks as among the greatest artists of the 20th century, along with three other so-called "outsiders," Adolf Wölfli, Henry Darger,... More >>>