Little is known about the life of Martin Ramirez. Brought to the attention of the art world by Jim Nutt, this Mexican-born artist's drawings rank among the greatest achievements in American vernacular art. Nutt rediscovered Ramirez's delirious, vertiginous drawings (along with those of P.M. Wentworth) in a musty bin of artwork made by patients at California's DeWitt State Hospital, where Ramirez was institutionalized for thirty years, never speaking. Psychologist Dr. Tarmo Pasto encouraged his creative output during his lifetime; his body of work is believed to include no more than 300 drawings, and of these his large-scale pieces are most seldom exhibited. Ramirez developed a distinctive, enigmatic iconography that references his shadowy past, both as a youth in Mexico and as a railroad worker in the United States.