Martha Diamond Art

Martha Diamond was an American artist. She was born and raised in Stuyvesant Town–Peter Cooper Village, Queens, New York. Her father, a doctor, inspired her interest in abstract art while taking her on drives to Manhattan to see his patients. This would later influence her exhibition "Cityscapes."

Diamond translated the energy and physicality of New York City into expressive abstract cityscapes. Her paintings and prints depict not only the scale and grandeur of New York’s robust skyscrapers and buildings, but also the shadows, reflections, and distinct qualities of light that mark and tint the building facades.

Working wet on wet, Diamond imbued her Expressionist paintings with a lush, atmospheric quality teeming with gestural dynamism. With her methodical paintings of the New York City skyline from different vantage points and times of day, her practice welcomes comparisons to Monet’s “Rouen Cathedral” series. Alex Katz wrote the introduction to her catalogue.

Diamond was part of a generation of groundbreaking feminist women artists that included Laurie Anderson, Jennifer Bartlett, Lynda Benglis, Deborah Butterfield, Louisa Chase, Janet Fish, Jane Freilicher, Nancy Graves, Jenny Holzer and others. In 1988, Diamond's Abstract Expressionist exhibition was staged at the Robert Miller Gallery. Her art was described as "deceptively simple, full of hidden skills and decisions that only gradually reveal themselves."

Diamond's work is held in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Gallery of Australia, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art.

Find original Martha Diamond art on 1stDibs.

(Biography provided by Lions Gallery)