Agnes Martin born March 22, 1912 was an artist ahead of her time. Tormented with struggle, she was dedicated to fulfilling her artistic vision and also had to contend with mental illness. She destroyed her early work and her mature works remain. Composed of simple elements and painted in a limited palette on canvases that are always square they reveal an esthetic sense.
She avoided the spotlight and advocated humility and egolessness and suffered poverty for years. In the 1960’s she abandoned the art world and all the posturing that came with it, left New York, packed up her life in a pick up truck and reemerged 18 months later on in a remote area of New Mexico.
Over the course of a career that spanned fifty years, Agnes Martin’s austere, serene work anticipated and helped to define Minimalism, even as she battled psychological crises and carved out a solitary existence in the American Southwest. Martin identified with the Abstract Expressionists but her commitment to linear geometry caused her to be associated in turn with Minimalist, feminist, and even outsider artists.
Acrylic on canvas
Her last artwork was completed in 2004 right before her death at 92.
I paint with my back to the world.
