Martin Ramirez, a Mexican migrant worker and psychiatric patient without formal artistic training, has been hailed by leading New York art critics as one of the twentieth century's greatest artists. His work has been exhibited alongside masters such as Jose Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, Rufino Tamayo, Salvador Dali, Marc Chagall, Paul Klee, and Joan Miro. A landmark exhibition of Ramirez's work at the American Folk Art Museum in 2007 broke attendance records and garnered praise from major media, including the New York Times, New Yorker, and Village Voice. Martin Ramirez offers the first sustained look at the life and critical reception of this acclaimed artist. Victor Espinosa challenges the stereotype of outsider art as an indecipherable enigma by delving into Ramirez's biography and showing how he transformed memories of his life in Mexico, as well as his experiences of displacement and seclusion in the United States, into powerful works of art. Espinosa then traces the reception of Ramirez's work, from its first anonymous showings in the 1950s to contemporary exhibitions and individual works that have sold for as much as a half-million dollars. This eloquently told story reveals how Ramirez's three-decades-long incarceration in California psychiatric institutions and his classification as "chronic paranoid schizophrenic" stigmatized yet also protected what his hands produced. Stripping off the labels "psychotic artist" and "outsider master," Martin Ramirez demonstrates that his drawings are not passive manifestations of mental illness. Although he drew while confined as a psychiatric patient, the formal elements and content of Ramirez's artwork are shaped by his experiences of cultural and physical displacement.

This stunning book examines the collection of works by self-taught artists assembled by Stephanie and John Smither over the last thirty-odd years. A team of prominent curators, writers, critics, and art historians focuses on key works by twelve artists, including the boisterous assemblages of Thornton Dial; brightly colored visual interpretations of the Bible by Sister Gertrude Morgan; Oscar Hadwiger's detailed wood models of fantastical architecture; and Carlo Zinelli's narrative tableaus of stylized figures and animals. Also featured are works by the ceramicist Georgia Blizzard; drawings by Hiroyuki Doi, Solange Knopf, Martin Ramirez, and Dominico Zindato; paintings by Jon Serl and Johnnie Swearingen; and carved wood sculptures by Charlie Willeto. Distributed for The Menil Collection Exhibition Schedule: The Menil Collection (06/10/16 -10/16/16)