Martin Ramirez was a self-taught artist who spent most of his adult life in California mental hospitals, diagnosed as a catatonic schizophrenic.
While institutionalized at DeWitt State Hospital, near Sacramento, Ramirez made drawings and collages for which he is now known. At DeWitt, a visiting professor of psychology and art, Tarmo Pasto, came across Ramirez's work and began to save the large-scale works Ramirez made using available materials, including brown paper bags, scraps of examining-table paper, and book pages glued together with a paste made of potatoes and saliva. His works display an distinctive representation that reflect both Mexican folk ethnicity and twentieth-century modernization. Since his death in 1963, Ramirez's drawings and collages have become some of the most highly valued examples of outsider art.
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