Cynthia Levy with a drawing by the outsider artist Martín Ramírez, her great-great-grandfather, at the American Folk Art Museum.

Family Finally Connects With Outsider Artist

田思怡譯

他們從洛杉磯起飛的班機到紐約時誤點近三小時，但旅途勞累阻止不了瑪莉亞．拉米瑞茲─米勒、她的六個女兒和一個外孫女最近在半夜三更衝出曼哈坦區飯店房間，直奔西53街。

NEW YORK－ Their flight from Los Angeles had arrived nearly three hours late, but travel fatigue couldn’t keep Maria Ramirez-Miller, her six daughters and a granddaughter from scampering recently out of their Manhattan hotel rooms and onto West 53^rd Street around midnight.  

街燈上掛的旗幟、咖啡杯上的圖案和美國民俗藝術博物館禮品店窗口堆疊的目錄，都在打馬丁．拉米瑞茲的名號。70多年來，這位自學成功的20世紀素人藝術家，對他的家人來說幾乎不存在。

There it was － trumpeted by banners hanging from street lamps and on coffee cups and catalogs stacked in the window of the American Folk Art Museum gift shop － the name Martin Ramirez. For more than 70 years, this self-taught 20^th- century outsider artist had been little more than a ghost to his family.  

但拉米瑞茲創作約300幅素描，成為他在1948年到1963年間被關在北加州一所精神病院時期的成名作，如同羅貝塔．史密斯在紐約時報評論他的新展覽所寫的，他「根本就是20世紀最偉大的藝術家之一」。

But Mr. Ramirez, who created roughly 300 drawings that make up his known work between 1948 and 1963 while confined to a mental hospital in Northern California, is, as Roberta Smith wrote in a New York Times review of his new show, “simply one of the greatest artists of the 20^th century.”  

她寫道：「他屬於那種平易近人、令人無法抗拒的天才素描畫家，和保羅．克利、索爾．史坦貝克及查爾斯．舒茲同列。」

“He belongs to the group of accessible, irresistible genius draftsmen that includes Paul Klee, Saul Steinberg and Charles Schultz,” she wrote.

她接著寫道：「我們對這位藝術家的認識愈深，愈明白我們才剛開始理解他的非凡成就。」

“The more we know about this artist,” she added, “the clearer it becomes that we are just beginning to fathom his extraordinary achievement.”  

這一家子女人在抵達紐約第二天早晨進入博物館，「馬丁．拉米瑞茲」回顧展的97幅素描中，有多幅是她們首次得見。

Yet when the women entered the museum the morning after they arrived in New York, they saw many of the 97 drawings that make up “Martin Ramirez,” a retrospective of his art, for the first time.  

她們站在那裡突然沉默下來，接著熱淚盈眶。女兒們簇擁著她們的母親，也就是拉米瑞茲的長外孫女，她目不轉睛盯著眼前的作品：沉迷、催眠似地詮釋的馬和騎士、火車和隧道、聖母和墨西哥哈利斯科地區的風景。拉米瑞茲1925年離開他在當地的小農場，到美國找工作養活妻小。

There was sudden silence as they stood there, and then tears. The daughters huddled around their mother, Mr. Rami’rez’s oldest grandchild, as she gazed at the work before her: the obsessive, hypnotic renderings of horses and riders, trains and tunnels, Madonnas and the landscape of the Jalisco region of Mexico. In 1925 Mr. Ramirez had left his small ranch there, seeking work in the United States to support his wife and children.  

到了1931年，他幾乎消失在加州精神醫療體系內，先被診斷為躁鬱症，後又判定是僵直型精神分裂。久而久之，他不再說話，被誤以為又聾又啞。1948年之後，他在加州奧本市德維特州立醫院度過餘生，全心畫畫。

By 1931 he had all but disappeared into the California mental health system, with diagnoses of manic-depression and later catatonic schizophrenia. Over time, he ceased to talk and was classified, erroneously, as deaf and mute. After 1948 he lived out his years at the DeWitt State Hospital in Aubum, California, spending his time drawing.   

醫院人員顯然曾在1940年代某個時間寄給拉米瑞茲的家人一些他的作品和一封信。家族成員用這些色彩繽紛的畫裝飾他們的庭院，但在他們被告知拉米瑞茲有肺結核後，把畫燒了。

Hospital workers apparently sent Mr. Ramírez’s family a few of his artworks, along with a letter, sometime in the 1940s. The family members decorated their patio with the colorful images but then burned the drawings when they were told that Mr. Ramírez had tuberculosis.

這位藝術家較大幅的作品如今在拍賣市場可以賣到逾10萬美元。但他家人除了和他有共同的姓氏和新尋回的榮耀外，已和他沒有任何實質關聯。

The artist’s larger works can now fetch more than $100,000 at auction. His family, however, has been left without any tangible connection to Mr. Ramírez, except for a shared surname and a newfound sense of pride.

民俗藝術博物館當代中心主任兼策展人布魯克．戴維斯．安德森策畫這次回顧展時，曾和拉米瑞茲家族成員書信往返，她並為他的家人導覽。

Brooke Davis Anderson, the director and curator of the folk art museum’s Contemporary Center, corresponded with members of the Ramírez family as she planned the retrospective, and she guided the family through the show.

拉米瑞茲─米勒的大女兒艾麗亞．狄亞茲說：「這項展覽開始策畫時，我們對展覽會成為這個樣子毫無概念。在這麼多年後找到你的身世背景，感覺很棒。」

“When this exhibition was started, we had no idea it could be something like this,” said Elia Diaz, Ms. Ramirez-Miller’s oldest daughter. “It’s amazing after all this time to find out where your background comes from.”

拉米瑞茲─米勒的一生也是典型的移民故事：在墨西哥和美國嘗盡艱辛、孤獨、語言障礙、流離失所和挫折沮喪。她是家中16個孩子的老大，從小就送去和祖母同住，也就是拉米瑞茲的妻子。

Ms. Ramirez-Miller’s life also speaks to the immigrant story — of hardships in Mexico and the United States, loneliness, language barriers, displacement and depression. The oldest of 16 children, she was sent as a young child to live with her grandmother, Mr. Ramírez’s wife.

狄亞茲談她曾外祖父時說：「我是否認為他精神失常？我想事實應該是他離開家庭，居無定所又沒有工作，他不會說英語，陷入沮喪，到處走，因沒人聽他說話而感到挫折。而且他感到沒臉回家。」

Speaking about her great-grandfather, Ms. Diaz said: “Do I think he was mentally ill? I think it’s more the fact that he was away from his family, he was homeless without a job, he couldn’t speak the language and he was depressed, just walking around, frustrated that nobody was listening to him. And he felt he had nothing to go home to.”

2000年，拉米瑞茲─米勒和女兒們在史托克頓的加州州立墓園內，找到拉米瑞茲的貧民墓地，在一位牧師陪同下，為他立墓碑。她們談到要成立家族基金會，也許買一幅拉米瑞茲的畫，並宣揚他留給後人的遺產。

In 2000 Ms. Ramirez-Miller and her daughters found Mr. Ramírez’s pauper’s plot at a California state cemetery in Stockton and, with a priest, laid a tombstone on his grave. The women are now talking of forming a family trust perhaps to buy a work by Mr. Ramírez and promote his legacy.

「我母親和她的家人在羞恥中長大，現在我為我母親感到驕傲，」狄亞茲說。「她的傳統給她無上自尊，她出身貧寒，但現在她感到富有。」

“My mother and her family grew up with shame, but now I feel pride for my mother,” Ms. Diaz said. “It has given her a lot of sense of self-worth connected with her heritage. She grew up really poor, but now she feels rich.”

她的姊妹艾巴．歐帝加接著說：「他成就非凡，那些年他也許以為什麼也沒留給家人，但他留給我們這個展覽。」

Her sister Elba Ortega added: “It’s such an accomplishment for him. Maybe he thought all those years that he had left his family nothing. But he left us this.”

By KATHRYN SHATTUCK  

【2007-02-05/聯合報/B6版/UNITED DAILY NEWS】