From September 13 through December 14, 2025, Scripps College’s Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery will present “Pintor de Poemas: Unseen Works by Alfredo Ramos Martínez,” an exhibition of recently discovered works by the acclaimed Mexican modernist.
Guest curated by Scripps alumna Robin Dubin, director of Louis Stern Fine Arts, “Pintor de Poemas” features more than 25 mural studies, drawings and paintings by Ramos Martínez, most never or rarely exhibited. While the artist has typically been viewed as apolitical, the works shed new light on his vision and demonstrate his engagement with labor, revolution, Indigenous identity and war in early twentieth-century Mexico and Los Angeles. The exhibition takes its title from an early description of Ramos Martínez as “one of those who paints poems,” calling attention to what has been overlooked in his work and the systems that shaped it.
“This remarkable collection of artworks suggests an artistic practice far more engaged with politics and current events than previously understood,” says Dubin. “In conversation with less familiar and frequently confounding bodies of the artist’s work, they offer significant contextual insight into Ramos Martínez’s artistic production in the United States.”
Alfredo Ramos Martínez (1871–1946) has long been recognized as a key figure in Mexican modernism. After serving as director of the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, where he innovated open-air painting schools and influenced a generation of muralists, Ramos Martínez relocated to Los Angeles in 1930. There, he created private commissions and public artworks, including “Las Vendedoras de Flores (The Flower Vendors)” in Scripps College’s Margaret Fowler Memorial Garden in 1946, a mural left unfinished at the time of his death.
“Timed ahead of the 80th anniversary of “Las Vendedoras de Flores (The Flower Vendors),” the exhibition offers an opportunity to reflect on its significance anew,” says Dr. Erin M. Curtis, Gabrielle Jungels-Winkler Director of the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery. “The exhibition presents studies for the mural alongside other rarely shown works that foreground struggle, resistance and the lived experiences of Indigenous people, inviting a reconsideration of this beloved campus fresco and its portrayal of women’s labor.”
The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated publication featuring essays by Dubin; Rosalía Romero, assistant professor of art history at Pomona College; and Armando Pulido, assistant curator of special projects at the Huntington; as well as a foreword by Curtis and a timeline of the Scripps mural.
A free, public opening reception will be held at the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery on Saturday, September 13, from 7 to 9 p.m. The gallery will be open during the exhibition from noon to 5 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday. Admission is free. For more information, visit rcwg.scrippscollege.edu or call (909) 607-3397.
Image: Alfredo Ramos Martínez, “El Defensor/The Protector,” c. 1932. Conté crayon and tempera on newsprint (Los Angeles Times, June 5, 1932). Private collection, Los Angeles. © The Alfredo Ramos Martínez Research Project, courtesy of Louis Stern Fine Arts.