of paintings of Paris scenes back to the Bohemian Club for an exhibition in San Francisco. He enjoyed the company of Henri Matisse and graduated from the École in 1899. In 1900 he entered the Academy of Eugène Carrière and his Portrait of Miss Marion Holden – a Tonalist work similar to Whistler's Mother – won an honorable mention in the Mexican display at the Paris International Exposition. Return to San Francisco, Mexico trips In 1901 he moved back to San Francisco, he shared an art studio with Gottardo Piazzoni and that year became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He advertised as a portrait painter, but also continued to paint tonalist landscapes. In the subsequent year he helped found the California Society of Artists with Piazzoni, Maynard Dixon, Charles Peter Neilson and other artists who were disaffected with the San Francisco Art Association. Their first and only exhibition included seventeen works by Martinez, mostly French scenes. In 1904 he began sharing his Montgomery Street atelier with Maynard Dixon; they held joint studio shows on Saturdays. The two travelled to Arizona and Tepic, Mexico, in April 1905; upon their return Martinez held several exhibitions. In 1905 he spent two months in Guadalajara with Maynard Dixon. Upon his return to San Francisco he held a number of exhibitions, and also gave one show in New York, emphasizing the recent Mexican genre paintings. That year he produced a painting a critic called a "masterpiece," given the title The Prayer of the Earth by his poet friend George Sterling. Personal life After the earthquake of 1906 he moved across the bay to Piedmont, California, and met Elsie Whitaker, 20 years his junior, the daughter of the writer Herman Whitaker. On October 17, 1907, he married Elsie Whitaker in Oakland. After their honeymoon in Carmel-by-the-Sea they commenced building a studio in Piedmont. During the summers of 1909 to 1914, they rented a house in Carmel so that Martínez could teach art classes at the Hotel Del Monte. The Martínezes had a daughter on August 13, 1913: Micaela Martinez. She became a fine artist, studying painting with Victor Arnautoff and sculpture with Ralph Stackpole; she later studied stone cutting with Ruth Cravath. In 1944 she married artist Ralph DuCasse and changed her name to Micaela Martinez DuCasse. In 1923, Elsie and Xavier Martínez separated. Art and teaching career Martinez was one of a group