Agnes Martin - Life and Career

Life and Career

Agnes Bernice Martin was born in Macklin, Saskatchewan, grew up in Vancouver, and moved to the United States in 1931, becoming a citizen in 1950. Martin studied at Western Washington University College of Education, Bellingham, WA, prior to receiving her B.A. (1942) from Teachers College, Columbia University. After hearing lectures by the Zen Buddhist scholar D. T. Suzuki at Columbia, she became interested in Asian thought, not as a religious discipline, but as a code of ethics, a practical how-to for getting through life. A few years following graduation, Martin matriculated at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, where she also taught art courses before returning to Columbia University to earn her M.A. (1952).

Her work is most closely associated with Taos, New Mexico, although she moved to New York City after being discovered by the artist/gallery owner Betty Parsons in 1957. That year, she settled in Coenties Slip in lower Manhattan, where her friends and neighbors, several of whom were also affiliated with Parsons, included Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly, and Jack Youngerman. Barnett Newman actively promoted Martin's work, and even helped install Martin's exhibitions in the late 1950s at Betty Parsons Gallery. Another close friend and mentor was Ad Reinhardt. In 1961, Martin contributed a brief introduction to a brochure for her friend Lenore Tawney's first solo exhibition, the only occasion on which she wrote on the work of a fellow artist. In 1967, Reinhardt died and the studio at Coenties Slip was slated for demolition. After Martin left New York and moved to Cuba, New Mexico, she did not paint for seven years and consciously distanced herself from the social life and social events that brought other artists into the public eye. In 1974, she collaborated with architect Bill Katz on a log cabin she would use as her studio.

That same year, she completed a group of new paintings and since 1975 has exhibited regularly. According to a filmed interview with her which was released in 2003, she had moved from New York City only when she was told her rented loft/workspace/studio would be no longer available because of the building's imminent demolition. She goes on further to state that she could not conceive of working in any other space in New York. When she died at age 92, she was said to have not read a newspaper for the last 50 years. The book dedicated to the exhibition of her work in New York at The Drawing Center in 2005 – 3x abstraction (Yale University Press) – analyzes the spiritual dimension in Martin's work.

The Agnes Martin estate is represented by Pace Gallery, New York.