Xavier Martínez

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Xavier Martínez (born February 7, 1869 in Guadalajara , Mexico , † January 13, 1943 in Carmel-by-the-Sea , California ) was a Californian tonalist artist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who received US citizenship acquired. He was the founder of the California Society of Artists and associated with well-known artists of the era such as Francis McComas , Childe Hassam and Arthur Mathews .

Childhood in Guadalajara

He began sketching his classmates and public school teachers at a young age. After school he worked as a bookbinder and printer in his father's bookstore. He learned French and wrote poetry, admired the poems of Goethe , Schiller and various French poets. In his later autobiographical writings, he remembers how his mother taught him the movements of the heavenly bodies when he was 10 years old. He reflected that at this point in time he had the first knowledge of a rhythm in the order of things. At the age of 13 he began attending the Liceo de Varones where he studied pre-Columbian archeology and its Tarascan heritage. He excelled in Native American arts and painted a copy of Titian's Entombment in oil.

San Francisco from 1893 to 1897

Upon arrival in San Francisco , Martinez attended the California School of Design, also known as the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art. He graduated with high honors and received the Avery Golden Medal for excellence in all artistic media. He immediately received an offer as assistant to the director of the institute, Arthur Frank Mathews . He became a member of the exclusive Bohemian Club.

Paris from 1897 to 1901

In Paris he attended the École des Beaux-Arts , Atelier Gerome. In 1898 he sent a number of paintings with Parisian scenes back to the Bohemian Club for exhibition. These included Ils de Corbeau , Market in Arcucil Cachan and Garden of Luxembourg, near Pont Neuf . In 1900 he attended the Eugène Carrières Academy and won an honorable mention at the 1900 World's Fair for his painting by Marion Holden.

Return to San Francisco, Mexico travel and marriage

In 1901 he shared a studio with Gottardo Piazzoni in San Francisco, and in that year became a citizen of the United States. He advertised as a portrait painter, but also continued to paint landscapes. In 1902 he helped found the California Society of Artists and exhibited twice, including at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art. Among the paintings on display were: By the Lake , Le Reve , New Year in Chinatown, and By the Sea .

In 1904 he traveled to Tepic , Mexico; On his return he held an exhibition at the Bohemian Club that included the paintings The Outcast and Paris La Nuit . In 1905 he returned to Guadalajara with his friend, the artist Maynard Dixon . Back in San Francisco, he held a number of exhibitions, including one in New York that highlighted his recent Mexican genre painting. That year he created one of his most important works: The Prayer of the Earth .

After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake , he moved across the bay to Piedmont and met Elsie Whitaker, the daughter of the author Herman Whitaker . On October 17, 1907, he married her in Oakland, California and began a studio in Piedmont. That year he painted The Road , now owned by the California Palace of the Legion of Honor.

Career as a teacher

In 1908 he began teaching at the California Academy of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, later known as the California College of the Arts . From 1909 to 1912 he held numerous exhibitions and taught various classes at the academy in Berkeley and Monterey . In 1912 he helped found the California Society of Etchers ; the following year he was elected to the National Geographic Society and received a key to the Capitol Club in Monterey. Also in 1913 he traveled with Francis McComas to paint in the Arizona desert. His daughter Micaela was born on August 26, 1913.

In 1914, the American impressionists Childe Hassam and Edward Simmons came to Piedmont to see Martínez's desert paintings . The following year he exhibited at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915) (where he won an Honorable Mention) and at the Golden Gate Park Museum in San Francisco. Throughout this period he had exhibitions in New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco. Notable paintings from this period include Head of a Girl , The Storm , Piedmont Hills, and Lake Merritt .

From 1916 to 1920 he had numerous exhibitions, including at the Palace of Fine Arts , The San Francisco Art Association and the Hotel Oakland. One of his famous paintings of that era is The Bathers , now in the Crocker Art Museum . He also taught a course in costume and drapery design in addition to his painting classes.

Martínez became a member of the American Federation of Arts in 1921 . In the years that followed, he continued to exhibit, but was increasingly appointed as a juror to judge the work of other artists. In 1935 he showed The Green Moon at the San Francisco Art Museum . In 1939 he exhibited the Portrait of Elsie at the Golden Gate International Exposition , Treasure Island. Martínez was selected as one of three (along with Fra Junípero Serra and William Keith ) to represent California in the Hall of Fame at the World's Fair in New York in 1940 .

Permanent exhibitions

Xavier Martínez's paintings can be found in the following museums:

bibliography

  • Xavier Martínez, Aztecas - Naluatlecas or Mexicas , California Arts and Architecture, (1935)
  • George W. Neubert, Xavier Martínez (1869-1943) , Oakland Art Museum (1974)
  • Barbara Novak, American Painting of the Nineteenth Century , Praeger Publishers, New York (1969)
  • Kevin Starr, Americans and the California Dream (1850-1915) , Oxford Press, New York (1973)

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personal data
SURNAME Martínez, Xavier
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Californian artist
DATE OF BIRTH February 7, 1869
PLACE OF BIRTH Guadalajara
DATE OF DEATH January 13, 1943
Place of death Carmel-by-the-Sea