Hair stylist turned sculptor Nina Ketmer lived in Ajijic in the 1960s

Nina Ketmer (1921-1965), a Danish-born naturalized American citizen and sculptor, lived in Ajijic in the early 1960s, following her marriage in about 1961 to Dick Bishop. Bishop had a spacious home at the corner of Ocampo and Privada Ocampo, which had belonged to his deceased wife, Margo, who, prior to marrying Bishop, had lived there with artist Otto Butterlin. In 1964, in Margo’s memory, Dick and Nina Bishop gave an X-Ray machine to the Chapala hospital and “a rare pair of pre-Columbian ceramic figurines” from Nayarit to a Central Florida museum.

Dick and Nina had a shared love of fine horses and also owned a property several blocks further west, at Ocampo 186, where they stabled their horses.

Nina was born on 19 September 1921 in Taastrup, Denmark, and became a U.S. citizen in 1958 while living in New York City at 248 E. 50th St., where she worked as a hair stylist for the Charles of the Ritz Salon. When she moved to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1950, her new employer—Gould’s Kimbrough Beaty Salon in Kimbrough Towers—advertised that Ketmer had studied with the famous stylist, Rene-Rambau, in Paris” and arrived in the U.S. after “fifteen years of experience in the finest European Salons… in Stockholm and Copenhagen, Denmark and in Paris.” Given that she was still only about thirty years old when she moved to Memphis, this promotional blurb must be somewhat exaggerated. It is unknown how, where or when she acquired her sculpting skills.

Among Dick and Nina’s circle of close friends in Ajijic were Bill Atkinson; writer John Mersereau Sr. and his wife, Margaret; writer Gina Dessart Hildreth and her husband, Phillip; writer Bob Somerlott; real estate developer Lou Wertheimer and his wife, Cathy; and Helen Kirtland, the founder of Ajijic Hand Looms, and her husband, Larry Hartmus.

The Mersereaus were also horse-lovers. When they commissioned Marcos Guzmán to build them a house west of Ajijic at Rancho Nuevo, Nina presented them with an equestrian statue of Margaret Mersereau, who loved charro and rode her young Arab thoroughbred filly in all the village parades.

Tragically, Nina Ketmer Bishop died suddenly of liver failure on 5 January 1965; her remains were interred in the local cemetery.

A few days later, in a heartfelt tribute to Nina, Gina Hildreth called her “a beautiful and gracious hostess,” and explained how her friends “respected her as an artist of great talent… admired her wit and have marveled at her devoted interest in developing a stable of fine horses.”

If anyone has (or knows the location of) any example of Ketmer’s work, please get in touch!

Tony Burton

Tony Burton’s books include “Lake Chapala: A Postcard History” (2022), “Foreign Footprints in Ajijic” (2022), “If Walls Could Talk: Chapala’s historic buildings and their former occupants” (2020), (available in translation as “Si Las Paredes Hablaran”), “Mexican Kaleidoscope” (2016), and “Lake Chapala Through the Ages” (2008).

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