The Brief

Maybe this has happened to you: A loved one dies, and then, while sorting through their remaining belongings, you discover something about them, something that makes you see them in a different light.

A new art exhibition at Scripps College has the same effect.

In “Pintor de Poemas: Unseen Works by Alfredo Ramos Martínez,” a series of mural studies, drawings, and paintings by the acclaimed Mexican modernist — some of which have never been shared with the public — recasts the artist's legacy.

In art history circles, said gallery director Erin Curtis, there’s a tendency to regard Ramos Martínez’s work, which often features Mexican landscapes and Indigenous people, as merely “serene, beautiful, decorative.”

But the exhibition, guest-curated by Scripps alumna Robin Dubin, shows that Ramos Martínez’s work was anything but apolitical.

A quiet rebellion

The bilingual show is divided into four sections: “revolution,” “labor,” “indigenismo,” and “war.”

In the gallery, kept dim to preserve the artist’s work, viewers will encounter a series of arresting images. This includes: A woman weeping over the body of a loved one; torture victims hanging with their feet and ankles bound; men toiling over the construction of new buildings, while, in another frame, another gaggle of men, clad in suits and bowties, smoke cigars and sip apéritifs; in another frame, four barefoot women — a group of flower vendors — walk in unison, with a determined look in their eyes as they face a day’s work.

Through wall text in English and Spanish, attendees learn that after 10 years of studying art in Europe, Ramos Martínez returned to Mexico City, just ahead of the 1910 Mexican Revolution. During that time, he established art schools, where students were taught to get out of the studio and paint the world around them. In 1929, Ramos Martínez came to the United States seeking medical treatment for his infant daughter, who was battling a serious bone disorder. Then, in the 1930s, amid the Great Depression, the country expelled or pressured an estimated 1 million people of Mexican ancestry to leave, including scores of U.S. citizens.

To understand Ramos Martínez’s work — including what he made public and what he shielded from view — knowing these biographical details is important, said curator Dubin.

At a lecture in 2023, she said the artist “was somewhat pigeonholed by his reputation as a painter of idyllic, rural, and poignant religious scenes.”

“Any commissions that came his way probably would have been with the understanding that this was the type of imagery that they could expect,” she said.

For a Mexican immigrant, failing to abide by expectations could be perilous. In 1932, the famed Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros — one of Ramos Martínez’s former students — was deported after completing “América Tropical” in downtown L.A. The mural, a sharp rebuke of imperialism and the oppression of Indigenous people, was whitewashed after its unveiling.

“Ramos Martínez was the primary earner for his family, which included a sick child who needed regular and extremely expensive medical care,” Dubin added. “Especially in the midst of the Great Depression, it's probable that he could not afford any loss of income ... that could affect his ability to access or pay for medical care for his daughter. These realities likely had an outsized impact on the types of public art commissions he was offered or prepared to accept.”

But, in private, Ramos Martínez was more rebellious.

In 1932, he used conté crayon and tempera to draw a man on a page from the L.A. Times. The man has high cheek bones and a strong, straight nose — features that according to curator Armando Pulido, the artist typically used to represent Indigenous subjects. The work is titled “El Defensor/The Protector,” and in this image, the unafraid man holds up a fist. This piece is an integral part of the show.

"El Defensor/The Protector," one of several pieces created by the artist on newsprint.

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© The Alfredo Ramos Martínez Research Project

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Courtesy Louis Stern Fine Arts

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Dubin named the exhibition after reading a line by Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío, whom Ramos Martínez befriended in Paris.

“Ramos Martínez es de los que pintan poesías ... no copia, sino interpreta. Él expresará la tristeza de los pescadores, la melancolía de las aldeas, los hombres inclinados por el peso del trabajo,” Darío wrote.

Those words are imprinted on a gallery wall: “Ramos Martínez is one of those who paints poetry ... he does not copy, but instead interprets. He will express the sorrow of the fisherman, the melancholy of the villages, the men bent under the weight of the work.”

Where else to visit after the gallery

Just a short walk from the gallery, visitors can continue learning about Ramos Martínez.

About 80 years ago, Scripps College commissioned the artist to paint a mural in the Margaret Fowler Memorial Garden.

The garden is housed in a tranquil courtyard, centered around a small fountain. Draped in wisteria, the garden walls are now home to a Ramos Martínez fresco. Here, students stop to leisurely read a book or catch up with friends. As a student at the women’s college, Dubin spent many afternoons there.

Making a fresco can be tough — it involves painting with water-based pigment directly onto wet plaster, so that the image becomes part of the wall.

Ramos Martínez died in 1946, before he could complete “Vendedoras de Flores (The Flower Vendors).” And because fresco work must be done in stages, viewers can see the progress of his work, how the mural was coming together.

“Las Vendedoras de Flores (The Flower Vendors)" at the Margaret Fowler Garden.

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Julia Barajas

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LAist

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When Ramos Martínez painted the fresco, he was housed in Dorsey Hall, the same dorm where Dubin lived decades later.

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Julia Barajas

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LAist

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One of the walls features a Zapotec woman, wearing the same type of headdress worn by women in Yalálag, a village in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.

During her lecture, Dubin reflected on the significance of her presence: “The elevation of this Zapotec woman, as an iconic and powerful figure, is a significant statement on the walls of an institution that in the 1940s admitted very few, if any, students or faculty of color,” she said.

It is also significant that Ramos Martínez painted this image at a school that was “constructed on Tongva land, using Spanish mission revival style architecture,” Dubin added.

In her view, the fresco was and remains an act of defiance.

“She represents a reclamation of Indigenous humanity,” said Dubin, “in a time and place that sought to dehumanize people like her.”

Plan your visit

“Pintor de Poemas: Unseen Works by Alfredo Ramos Martínez” will launch with a free opening reception Saturday from 7-9 p.m. The exhibition ends Dec. 14.

Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery: 251 E. 11th St., Claremont

Time: Wednesday to Sunday, noon to 4 p.m.

Margaret Fowler Garden: 1001 Amherst Ave, Claremont

Cost: Both spaces are free.

Where to park: Free street parking is available around the gallery.

LACMA’s first Van Gogh isn’t a painting of blue flowers, golden wheat fields or aged faces. It’s of a parked stagecoach, and it’s considered a good example of what made the Dutch painter, and the Impressionist movement he was a part of, so revolutionary.

The painting is called “Tarascon Stagecoach.” It was painted in 1888 and was donated to LACMA earlier this year by the Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation.

It’s LACMA’s first Van Gogh painting, and the encyclopedic museum will be showing it off starting Sunday in a show called “Collecting Impressionism at LACMA” that focuses on 100 works from LACMA’s collection. The works are arranged chronologically to show the evolving tastes that have shaped the museum's collection of Impressionist art.

The museum’s acquisition isn’t just a win for the museum. The museum-going public and the region’s teenage and college-age students also will benefit.

“I very much remember seeing Van Gogh in a rotunda space in the [Philadelphia Museum of Art] and finding it to be just so striking because of these luscious, bright colors,” said Summer Sloane-Britt, who saw her first Van Goh during a middle school visit to the museum.

Sloane-Britt now is a professor of art and art history at Occidental College.

“Visual analysis and seeing objects in person is always so core to historical learning and for studio artists as well,” Sloane-Britt said.

And seeing a Van Gogh in person, Sloane-Britt said, and saying you don’t like it is also OK because that signals the work has led you to identify and assert your own aesthetic tastes in art.

Van Gogh road trip in LA. Shotgun!

The LACMA exhibit presents a good opportunity to get on the road for a four-stop Van Gogh road trip without leaving L.A. County.

Van Gogh's "Irises"

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Courtesy Getty Museum

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You can start at LACMA and see “Tarascon Stagecoach,” benefiting from the context of seeing other impressionist works by Van Gogh’s contemporaries.

Hop over to the Hammer Museum in Westwood, where you’ll see “Hospital at Saint-Rémy,” one of three paintings by Van Gogh in the collection.

Then head west on Wilshire Boulevard to the Getty to see “Irises,” one of the paintings that’s made Van Gogh an art star.

"The Mulberry Tree," a painting by Vincent Van Gogh, on display at the Norton Simon Museum

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Courtesy Norton Simon Museum

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End your Van Gogh road trip by heading east to Pasadena to the Norton Simon Museum. The museum’s smaller, more intimate setting is a good place to see the museum’s six, yes six, Van Gogh paintings.

The exhibit also will feature the newly acquired work "The Artist’s Garden, Vétheuil" by Claude Monet.

The new year doesn’t just bring new gifts and new resolutions. It also brings new laws.

State and local lawmakers have a lot on tap for 2026 when it comes to housing laws that will affect Southern California renters and landlords.

From refrigerators to fire damage, from development streamlining to rent control caps, LAist has rounded up the legal changes coming next year that you need to know.

AB 628: No more ‘no fridge’ apartment listings

Starting Jan. 1, landlords must provide tenants with a working refrigerator and stove. Many landlords already offer these appliances, but the L.A. area stands out nationwide for having an unusually high proportion of fridge-less apartments.

Next year, L.A. newcomers will no longer be taking to social media to express incredulity at all the city’s bring-your-own-fridge apartments. If landlords fail to provide refrigerators or stoves in good working condition, apartments will be considered uninhabitable under the new law.

SB 610: Landlords must clean smoke damage

In the weeks and months after the January fires, many renters struggled to get their landlords to address toxic ash that blew into apartments and rental homes that remained standing. Some landlords said cleaning up the smoke damage was not their responsibility. Initial communication from local public officials was confusing on what tenants were supposed to do.

This new law, which partially was driven by LAist’s reporting, clarifies that in the wake of a natural disaster, “it shall be the duty of a landlord” to remove “hazards arising from the disaster, including, but not limited to, the presence of mold, smoke, smoke residue, smoke odor, ash, asbestos or water damage.”

SB 79: Upzoning LA neighborhoods near transit

L.A.’s City Council voted to oppose it. Mayor Karen Bass asked the governor to veto it. But California’s big new upzoning law passed anyway. Its changes are set to take effect July 1, 2026.

Under the law, new apartment buildings up to nine stories tall will be allowed next to rail stations, and buildings up to five stories tall will be allowed within a half-mile of rapid bus stops. This upzoning applies to neighborhoods within those transit zones, even if they’re currently zoned only for single-family homes.

Next comes the implementation. The law could give renters more options once new housing is constructed. But L.A. could choose to delay the law’s effects in some areas for years. Ahead of the law’s passage, City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto sent legislators a letter opposing the bill, signaling what could turn into a legal showdown over the bill.

AB 246: Protecting Social Security recipients during government shutdowns

Tenants can face eviction three days after missing their rent. During this year’s federal government shutdown — the longest on record — that swift timeline was a cause for anxiety among tenants who count on federal benefits to cover their rent.

Though this year’s shutdown did not affect regular Social Security payments, this law will give Social Security recipients a defense in eviction court if they ever stop receiving benefits because of any future shutdowns. Under the law, renters will be required to repay their missed rent, or enter a repayment plan, within two weeks of their Social Security payments being restored.

Lower rent control caps in the city of LA

After years of debate, the L.A. City Council passed a new cap on annual rent hikes in the roughly three-quarters of city apartments covered by local rent control rules.

The City Council enacted a new 4% limit, replacing a 40-year-old formula that allowed increases as high as 10% in some units during periods of high inflation. Councilmembers also ended a 2% additional increase for landlords who cover tenants’ gas and electricity costs.

The city had a nearly four-year rent freeze in place during the COVID-19 pandemic that ended in February 2024. That means many L.A. tenants are scheduled to receive their next rent hike Feb. 1, 2026. They should be getting a 30-day notice soon. Each year’s limit is determined by recent inflation data. The current cap of 3% is set to last until June 30.