Agnes Martin Abstract Paintings
American, 1912-2004
Born on a farm in rural Saskatchewan, Canada, Agnes Martin immigrated to the United States in 1932 in the hopes of becoming a teacher. After earning a degree in art education, she moved to the desert plains of Taos, New Mexico, where she made abstract paintings with organic forms, which attracted the attention of renowned New York gallerist Betty Parsons, who convinced the artist to join her roster and move to New York in 1957. There, Martin lived and worked on Coenties Slip, a street in Lower Manhattan, alongside a community of artists—including Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly, and Jack Youngerman—who were all drawn to the area’s cheap rents, expansive loft spaces and proximity to the East River. Harbor Number 1 (1957), one of Martin’s earliest New York paintings, combines the geometric abstraction of her earlier Taos work with the newfound inspiration of the harbor landscape, evident in her choice of blue-gray palette.
Over the course of the next decade, Martin developed her signature format: six by six foot painted canvases, covered from edge to edge with meticulously penciled grids and finished with a thin layer of gesso. Though she often showed with other New York abstractionists, Martin’s focused pursuit charted new terrain that lay outside of both the broad gestural vocabulary of Abstract Expressionism and the systematic repetitions of Minimalism. Rather, her practice was tethered to spirituality and drew from a mix of Zen Buddhist and American Transcendentalist ideas. For Martin, painting was “a world without objects, without interruption… or obstacle. It is to accept the necessity of … going into a field of vision as you would cross an empty beach to look at the ocean.”1
In 1967, at the height of her career, Martin faced the loss of her home to new development, the sudden death of her friend Ad Reinhardt, and the growing strain of mental illness; she left New York, and returned to Taos, where she abandoned painting, instead pursuing writing and meditation in isolation. Her return to painting in 1974 was marked by a subtle shift in style: no longer defined by the delicate graphite grid, compositions such as Untitled Number 5 (1975) display bolder geometric schemes—like distant relatives of her earliest works. In these late paintings, Martin evoked the warm palette of the arid desert landscape where she remained for the rest of her life.to
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Artist: Agnes Martin
Untitled No. 7
By Agnes Martin
Located in Palm Desert, CA
"Untitled No. 7" is an abstract Post War acrylic, pencil and gesso on canvas by Agnes Martin in 1974. The artwork is 72 x 72 inches and, with the frame, is 72 3/8 x 72 3/8 x 1 1/2 in...
Category
20th Century Post-War Agnes Martin Abstract Paintings
Materials
Gesso, Canvas, Acrylic, Pencil
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Questions About Agnes Martin Abstract Paintings
- Why did Agnes Martin paint?1 Answer1stDibs ExpertApril 5, 2022Agnes Martin painted because of religious reasons. She viewed producing art as a form of spiritual meditation, borrowing from concepts of Zen Buddhism and American Transcendentalist philosophers. Shop a collection of Agnes Martin art from some of the world’s top sellers on 1stDibs.
- 1stDibs ExpertAugust 15, 2024Agnes Martin made around 450 paintings over the course of her life. However, no one knows the exact number. After she developed her grid system in 1960, Martin destroyed all of her earlier pieces, so it's possible that many works were lost. On 1stDibs, find a variety of Agnes Martin art from some of the world's top galleries.