Xavier Martinez
Encyclopedia
Xavier Timoteo Martínez was a California
artist active in the late 19th and early 20th century. He was born in the Mexican
city of Guadalajara, Jalisco
, and, after becoming a naturalized citizen of the United States, died in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. Martinez was a founder of the California Society of Artists and associated with well known artists of the era including Francis McComas
, Childe Hassam
and Arthur Mathews
.
and helping with printing chores. He learned French and wrote poetry, admiring the poems of Goethe, Schiller and various French poets. In his later autobiographical writings he recalled how at age ten his mother would teach him about the movements of celestial bodies
. Martinez reflected that at this age he had his first awareness that there was a rhythm in the order of things. At age 13 he began attending the Liceo de Varones
(Grammar School for Men), where he studied pre-Columbian
archaeology and his Tarascan heritage. He excelled in Indian designs and arts, and painted an oil copy
of Entombment by Titian
.
Institute of Art. He graduated with high honors and received the Avery Golden Medal for excellence in all art media. He was immediately offered a position as assistant to the head of the Institute, Arthur Frank Mathews
and became a member of the exclusive Bohemian Club
.
and won honorable mention at the Paris International Exposition
for his painting of Marion Holden.
and that year became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He advertised as a portrait painter, but also continued to paint tonalist
landscapes as well. In the subsequent year he helped found California Society of Artists with Piazzoni, Blendon Campbell and Charles Peter Neilson. Also in 1902 he exhibited twice at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art. Among his paintings shown that year were: By the Lake, Le Reve, New Year in Chinatown and By the Sea. In 1904 he travelled to Tepic
, Mexico; upon his return he held an exhibition at the Bohemian Club that included the paintings The Outcast and Paris La Nuit. Then in 1905 he returned to Guadalajara with his friend, artist Maynard Dixon
. Upon his return to San Francisco he held a number of exhibitions, and also gave one show in New York, emphasizing the recent Mexican genre
paintings. That year he produced one of his most important works: The Prayer of the Earth. After the Earthquake of 1906
he moved across the bay to Piedmont and met Elsie Whitaker, daughter of the writer Herman Whitaker
. On October 17, 1907 he married Elsie Whitaker in Oakland, California
and commenced building a studio in Piedmont, California
. In 1907 he painted The Road, which is held by the California Palace of the Legion of Honor
.
. From 1909 to 1912 he held numerous exhibitions and taught various classes for the Academy at Berkeley
and Monterey
. In the year 1912 he helped found the California Society of Etchers; then, the following year Martinez was elected to the National Geographic Society
and given a key to the Capitol Club in Monterey. Also in 1913 he made a painting trip to the Arizona desert with Francis McComas
. On August 26, 1913 his daughter Micaela was born.
In 1914, Impressionists Childe Hassam
and Edward Simmons
came to Piedmont to view Martinez' desert paintings. The following year he exhibited at the Panama Pacific International Exhibition
(where he won honorable mention) and at the Golden Gate Park Museum in San Francisco. Throughout this period he had shows in New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco. Noted paintings of this period are Head of a Girl, The Storm, Piedmont Hills and Lake Merritt. Between 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 paintings from this era is The Bathers, presently hung at the Crocker Art Museum
. He also taught a course in costume and drapery design in addition to his painting classes.
Martinez became a member of the American Federation of Arts
in 1921. In subsequent years he continued to exhibit, but was increasingly called upon to be a juror of other artists' works. In 1935 he showed The Green Moon at the San Francisco Art Museum. In 1939 he exhibited Portrait of Elsie at the Golden Gate International Exposition
, Treasure Island. Martinez was selected in 1940 to represent California in the Hall of Fame at the World's Fair of 1940 in New York
as one of three (along with Father Junipero Serra
and William Keith
).
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
artist active in the late 19th and early 20th century. He was born in the Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
city of Guadalajara, Jalisco
Guadalajara, Jalisco
Guadalajara is the capital of the Mexican state of Jalisco, and the seat of the municipality of Guadalajara. The city is located in the central region of Jalisco in the western-pacific area of Mexico. With a population of 1,564,514 it is Mexico's second most populous municipality...
, and, after becoming a naturalized citizen of the United States, died in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. Martinez was a founder of the California Society of Artists and associated with well known artists of the era including Francis McComas
Francis McComas
There are several people named Francis McComas:*Francis McComas , a Tasmanian-born landscape artist.*Jesse Francis McComas , an American science fiction editor....
, Childe Hassam
Childe Hassam
Frederick Childe Hassam was a prolific American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressionism to American collectors, dealers, and museums...
and Arthur Mathews
Arthur Frank Mathews
Arthur F. Mathews was an American Tonalist painter who was one of the founders of the American Arts and Crafts Movement. Trained as an architect and artist, he and his wife Lucia Kleinhans Mathews had a significant effect on the evolution of Californian art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...
.
Childhood in Guadalajara
Martinez began sketching his classmates and teachers at a young age while attending public school. After school he worked in his father's bookstore bookbindingBookbinding
Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book from a number of folded or unfolded sheets of paper or other material. It usually involves attaching covers to the resulting text-block.-Origins of the book:...
and helping with printing chores. He learned French and wrote poetry, admiring the poems of Goethe, Schiller and various French poets. In his later autobiographical writings he recalled how at age ten his mother would teach him about the movements of celestial bodies
Celestial Body
Celestial Body is a Croatian film directed by Lukas Nola. It was released in 2000....
. Martinez reflected that at this age he had his first awareness that there was a rhythm in the order of things. At age 13 he began attending the Liceo de Varones
Liceo de Varones
Club Liceo was a former Mexican football club that played in the Liga Occidental De Jalisco. This club along with Guadalajara, Atlético Occidental, Excelsior, Cuauhtémoc and Iturbide were the first clubs to be founded in the state of Jalisco in 1906...
(Grammar School for Men), where he studied pre-Columbian
Pre-Columbian
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
archaeology and his Tarascan heritage. He excelled in Indian designs and arts, and painted an oil copy
Oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...
of Entombment by Titian
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
.
San Francisco, 1893 to 1897
Upon arrival in San Francisco, Martinez enrolled in the California School of Design, also known as the Mark HopkinsMark Hopkins
Mark Hopkins was one of four principal investors who formed the Central Pacific Railroad along with Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, and Collis Huntington in 1861.-Early years:...
Institute of Art. He graduated with high honors and received the Avery Golden Medal for excellence in all art media. He was immediately offered a position as assistant to the head of the Institute, Arthur Frank Mathews
Arthur Frank Mathews
Arthur F. Mathews was an American Tonalist painter who was one of the founders of the American Arts and Crafts Movement. Trained as an architect and artist, he and his wife Lucia Kleinhans Mathews had a significant effect on the evolution of Californian art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...
and became a member of the exclusive Bohemian Club
Bohemian Club
The Bohemian Club is a private men's club in San Francisco, California, United States.Its clubhouse is located at 624 Taylor Street in San Francisco...
.
Paris, 1897 to 1901
Martinez entered the Paris École des Beaux Arts, Atelier Gerome. In 1898 he sent a number of paintings of Paris scenes back to the Bohemian Club for an exhibition. Among these were Ils de Corbeau, Market in Arcucil Cachan and Garden of Luxembourg, near Pont Neuf. In 1900 he entered the Academy of Eugene CarriereEugène Carrière
Eugène Anatole Carrière was a French Symbolist artist of the Fin de siècle period. His work is best known for its brown monochrome palette. He was a close friend of the sculptor Rodin and his work influenced Picasso...
and won honorable mention at the Paris International Exposition
Exposition Universelle (1900)
The Exposition Universelle of 1900 was a world's fair held in Paris, France, from April 15 to November 12, 1900, to celebrate the achievements of the past century and to accelerate development into the next...
for his painting of Marion Holden.
Return to San Francisco, Mexico trips and marriage
In 1901, he shared a studio in San Francisco with Gottardo PiazzoniGottardo Piazzoni
Gottardo Fidele Piazzoni was a Swiss-born American landscape painter, muralist and sculptor of Italian heritage, a key member of the school of Northern California artists in the early 1900s....
and that year became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He advertised as a portrait painter, but also continued to paint tonalist
Tonalism
Tonalism was an artistic style that emerged in the 1880s when American artists began to paint landscape forms with an overall tone of colored atmosphere or mist. Between 1880 and 1915, dark, neutral hues such as gray, brown or blue, often dominated compositions by artists associated with the style...
landscapes as well. In the subsequent year he helped found California Society of Artists with Piazzoni, Blendon Campbell and Charles Peter Neilson. Also in 1902 he exhibited twice at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art. Among his paintings shown that year were: By the Lake, Le Reve, New Year in Chinatown and By the Sea. In 1904 he travelled to Tepic
Tepic
Tepic is the capital and largest city of the Mexican state of Nayarit.It is located in the central part of the state, at.It stands at an altitude above sea level of some 915 meters, on the banks of the Río Mololoa and the Río Tepic, approximately 225 kilometers north-west of Guadalajara, Jalisco....
, Mexico; upon his return he held an exhibition at the Bohemian Club that included the paintings The Outcast and Paris La Nuit. Then in 1905 he returned to Guadalajara with his friend, artist Maynard Dixon
Maynard Dixon
Maynard Dixon was a 20th-century American artist whose body of work focused on the American West. He was married for a time to American photographer Dorothea Lange.-Biography:...
. Upon his return to San Francisco he held a number of exhibitions, and also gave one show in New York, emphasizing the recent Mexican genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
paintings. That year he produced one of his most important works: The Prayer of the Earth. After the Earthquake of 1906
1906 San Francisco earthquake
The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco, California, and the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the earthquake is a moment magnitude of 7.9; however, other...
he moved across the bay to Piedmont and met Elsie Whitaker, daughter of the writer Herman Whitaker
Herman Whitaker
Herman Whitaker was a Californian writer.Whitaker and his family moved to the Piedmont hills in 1902 and took up residence in "The Bug House," which is now Blair Avenue....
. On October 17, 1907 he married Elsie Whitaker in Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
and commenced building a studio in Piedmont, California
Piedmont, California
Piedmont is a small, affluent city in Alameda County, California, United States. It is surrounded by the city of Oakland. The population was 10,667 at the 2010 census. Piedmont was incorporated in 1907 and was developed significantly in the 1920s and 1930s...
. In 1907 he painted The Road, which is held by the California Palace of the Legion of Honor
California Palace of the Legion of Honor
The California Palace of the Legion of Honor is a fine art museum in San Francisco, California...
.
Lifetime career as teacher
In 1908, he began teaching at the California Academy of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, which later became known as the California College of Arts and CraftsCalifornia College of the Arts
California College of the Arts , founded in 1907, is known for its broad, interdisciplinary programs in art, design, architecture, and writing. It has two campuses, one in Oakland and one in San Francisco, California, USA...
. From 1909 to 1912 he held numerous exhibitions and taught various classes for the Academy at Berkeley
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
and Monterey
Monterey, California
The City of Monterey in Monterey County is located on Monterey Bay along the Pacific coast in Central California. Monterey lies at an elevation of 26 feet above sea level. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 27,810. Monterey is of historical importance because it was the capital of...
. In the year 1912 he helped found the California Society of Etchers; then, the following year Martinez was elected to the National Geographic Society
National Geographic Society
The National Geographic Society , headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world. Its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical...
and given a key to the Capitol Club in Monterey. Also in 1913 he made a painting trip to the Arizona desert with Francis McComas
Francis McComas
There are several people named Francis McComas:*Francis McComas , a Tasmanian-born landscape artist.*Jesse Francis McComas , an American science fiction editor....
. On August 26, 1913 his daughter Micaela was born.
In 1914, Impressionists Childe Hassam
Childe Hassam
Frederick Childe Hassam was a prolific American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressionism to American collectors, dealers, and museums...
and Edward Simmons
Edward Simmons (painter)
Edward Emerson Simmons was an American Impressionist painter, remembered for his mural work. He was born in Concord, Massachusetts, the son of a Unitarian minister....
came to Piedmont to view Martinez' desert paintings. The following year he exhibited at the Panama Pacific International Exhibition
Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915)
The Panama-Pacific International Exposition was a world's fair held in San Francisco, California between February 20 and December 4 in 1915. Its ostensible purpose was to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal, but it was widely seen in the city as an opportunity to showcase its recovery...
(where he won honorable mention) and at the Golden Gate Park Museum in San Francisco. Throughout this period he had shows in New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco. Noted paintings of this period are Head of a Girl, The Storm, Piedmont Hills and Lake Merritt. Between 1916 to 1920 he had numerous exhibitions including at the Palace of Fine Arts
Palace of Fine Arts
The Palace of Fine Arts in the Marina District of San Francisco, California, is a monumental structure originally constructed for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in order to exhibit works of art presented there. One of only a few surviving structures from the Exposition, it is the only one still...
, The San Francisco Art Association and the Hotel Oakland. One of his paintings from this era is The Bathers, presently hung at the Crocker Art Museum
Crocker Art Museum
The Crocker Art Museum is one of the leading arts institutions in California, and the longest continuously operating art museum in the West. Located in Sacramento, California, the Crocker has been an art innovator since 1885...
. He also taught a course in costume and drapery design in addition to his painting classes.
Martinez became a member of the American Federation of Arts
American Federation of Arts
The American Federation of Arts is an organization in the United States of museums and other entities involved in the arts. It was established in 1909 at a convention held in Washington, D. C. from May 11–13 of that year called by the National Academy of Art. The concept for the organization was...
in 1921. In subsequent years he continued to exhibit, but was increasingly called upon to be a juror of other artists' works. In 1935 he showed The Green Moon at the San Francisco Art Museum. In 1939 he exhibited Portrait of Elsie at the Golden Gate International Exposition
Golden Gate International Exposition
The Golden Gate International Exposition , held at San Francisco, California's Treasure Island, was a World's Fair that celebrated, among other things, the city's two newly-built bridges. The San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge was dedicated in 1936 and the Golden Gate Bridge was dedicated in 1937...
, Treasure Island. Martinez was selected in 1940 to represent California in the Hall of Fame at the World's Fair of 1940 in New York
1939 New York World's Fair
The 1939–40 New York World's Fair, which covered the of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park , was the second largest American world's fair of all time, exceeded only by St. Louis's Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904. Many countries around the world participated in it, and over 44 million people...
as one of three (along with Father Junipero Serra
Junípero Serra
Blessed Junípero Serra, O.F.M., , known as Fra Juníper Serra in Catalan, his mother tongue was a Majorcan Franciscan friar who founded the mission chain in Alta California of the Las Californias Province in New Spain—present day California, United States. Fr...
and William Keith
William Keith
William Keith may refer to:*William Keith of Galston , Scottish soldier during the Wars of Scottish Independence.*William Keith, 4th Earl Marischal*William Keith, 6th Earl Marischal , Scottish peer and naval officer...
).
Permanent collections
Xavier Martinez' paintings are held in the following museums:- California Palace of the Legion of HonorCalifornia Palace of the Legion of HonorThe California Palace of the Legion of Honor is a fine art museum in San Francisco, California...
, a San Francisco Fine Arts Museum - Crocker Art MuseumCrocker Art MuseumThe Crocker Art Museum is one of the leading arts institutions in California, and the longest continuously operating art museum in the West. Located in Sacramento, California, the Crocker has been an art innovator since 1885...
, Sacramento, California - Oakland Museum of CaliforniaOakland Museum of CaliforniaOakland Museum of California or Oakland Museum is a museum dedicated to the art, history, and natural science of California located in Oakland, California....
Sources
- Xavier Timoteo Orozco Martinez - painter
- A History of Mexican Americans in California: Historic Sites
- Maynard Dixon (1875-1946)
- Twilight and Reverie: California Tonalist Painting 1890-1930
External links
- Online Archive of California: "Self-portrait of Xavier Martinez"; oil sketch on academy board, presented to Haig PatigianHaig PatigianHaig Patigian was an Armenian-American sculptor born on January 22, 1876 in the city of Van, Armenia, in the Ottoman Empire and died on September 19, 1950 in San Francisco, California. His parents were teachers at the American Mission School in Armenia...
in 1912.