Florida Mexicana

Florida Mexicana depicts an Indigenous Mexican woman offering a large bowl of vibrant flowers. Alfredo Ramos Martínez balances sculptural form with a focus on pattern and color to create an image that is at once modern and retrospective. Despite being painted in 1936 at the height of the Great Depression, in the midst of the Dust Bowl, Ramos Martínez provides an idyllic scene of bountiful nature. The woman becomes an allegorical symbol of spring, new life, and hope.

Florida Mexicana was painted after Ramos Martínez immigrated to California. His style draws on inspirations from Mesoamerican art and his knowledge of turn-of-the-twentieth-century French painting, like that of Paul Gauguin, which he gained through studies in Paris.