Born on a farm in rural Saskatchewan, Canada, Agnes Martin emigrated to the United States in 1932 with aspirations of becoming an educator. Once she obtained a degree in art education, she relocated to the desert plains of Taos, New Mexico, where she crafted abstract paintings infused with natural forms. These creations caught the eye of renowned New York gallerist Betty Parsons, who convinced Martin to join her roster and move to the bustling city in 1957. Settling on Coenties Slip, a street in Lower Manhattan, she found herself among a community of fellow artists, including Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly, and Jack Youngerman. Drawn to the area’s low rents, spacious lofts, and convenient proximity to the East River, Martin flourished.
One of her earliest New York pieces, Harbor Number 1 (1957), effectively merges her earlier Taos style of geometric abstraction with the new inspiration she found in the coastal landscape, as showcased by her use of a blue-gray palette.
Over the next decade, Martin honed her signature format: six by six foot painted canvases, meticulously adorned with penciled grids and finished with a delicate layer of gesso. While she often displayed her works alongside other New York abstract artists, her concentrated vision carved out a unique niche that diverged from the sweeping gestures of Abstract Expressionism and the repetitive systems of Minimalism. Instead, her art was deeply connected to spirituality, drawing inspiration from a blend of Zen Buddhist and American Transcendentalist ideas. For her, painting was “a world without physical objects, devoid of obstructions…a field of vision to be entered, much like a solitary stroll along an empty beach to gaze out at the vast ocean.” 1
By 1967, at the pinnacle of her artistic career, Martin was confronted with the loss of her home to development, the unexpected passing of her friend Ad Reinhardt, and the increasing weight of a mental illness. Thus, she left New York and returned to Taos, where she abandoned painting in favor of writing and meditation.
www.ftn-books.com has some highly collectable Martin titles available.
