Louis Stern, president and director of Louis Stern Fine Arts in West Hollywood, will present a lecture, “Alfredo Ramos Martinez and Hollywood,” on Tuesday, March 20, at 12 p.m. in the Hampton Room of the Malott Commons, Scripps College. As part of the Tuesday Noon Academy, the event is free and open to the public. Coffee and dessert are provided. Guests may bring a lunch or purchase one at the Malott Commons Dining Hall. Doors to the Hampton Room open at 11:45 a.m. For additional program information, please call the Malott Commons office at (909) 607-9372.
The modern Mexican master, Alfredo Ramos Martinez (1872-1946) studied art in Mexico City and Paris around the turn of the century. In 1913, he became director of the San Carlos Academy of Art in Mexico City, Mexico, where muralist David Alfaro Siquieros was one of his first students. While living in Los Angeles, Ramos Martinez exhibited his paintings in museums and galleries, and received mural commissions from Hollywood celebrities such as screenwriter Jo Swerling, designer Edith Head, and director Alfred Hitchcock.
Ramos Martinez’ mural, “The Flower Vendors,” whose stylized figures reveal the artist’s interest in pre-Colombian art, stretches across a large expanse in Margaret Fowler Garden at Scripps College. The mural was left unfinished when the painter died in 1946. After his death in 1946, his works were highlighted in several memorial retrospectives including Dalzell-Hatfield Galleries in 1951-1952 and later in 1975, Los Angeles City College in 1953, at Scripps College in 1956. In 1992, Louis Stern Galleries presented a prominent retrospective exhibition of his work and continues to represent the estate.
Louis Stern is a second generation dealer and one of three brothers in the art world. This year marks his 46th year in the art business. Stern specializes in Impressionist and important modern paintings and drawings. His gallery is the exclusive representative of the estate of Ramos Martinez, and presented the first recent retrospective of Ramos Martinez, “Alfredo Ramos Martinez: A Treasure Trove Exhibition,” in 1991. The exhibition served as the cornerstone for the major retrospective of the artist presented by the National Museum of Art in Mexico City in 1992. The gallery is working on a catalogue raisonné for the Mexican master.
Stern is on the Board of Directors of the Fine Art Dealers Association (FADA); the Art Dealers Association of California, Vice-President 1990-1991; International Foundation for Art Research, New York; Archives of American Art (Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; and a founding member of the Photographic Arts Council at LACMA. He is also on the advisory board of Gallery 825/Los Angeles Art Association and is listed in Who’s Who In America Art.