Martin, Agnes (Agnes Bernice Martin), 1912–2004, American painter, b. Macklin, Canada. She moved to the United States in 1931, became a U.S. citizen in 1950, and emerged as an important artist in the late 50s and early 60s. Martin is best known for her spare, abstract all-over grid paintings. Penciled on canvases that are monochrome or washed in muted colors, these emotionally evocative works seem to glow with an interior light. Her use of line expresses both strength and delicacy within a restrained yet luminous form. Martin, who came to New York City in 1957 and left it a decade later, settled in New Mexico, and abandoned painting until 1974. Her later works are intimate yet impersonal, and often created in series. They usually contain horizontal bands drawn in graphite and painted in a subtle, limited palette that suggest a shimmering, mysteriously lighted, and depthless space. Among the many public collections that include her paintings are the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum, and Guggenheim Museum, New York City, and the Tate Gallery, London.

Bibliography

See her Writings (1992); study by B. Haskell (1992).

Martin, Agnes

(born March 22, 1912, Macklin, Sask., Can.—died Dec. 16, 2004, Taos, N.M., U.S.) Canadian-born U.S. painter. She moved to the U.S. in 1931 and became a U.S. citizen in 1950. She studied at Columbia University and taught at the University of New Mexico. In 1958 she had her first solo exhibition. Martin was a prominent exponent of geometric abstraction, and, for her, a gray grid of intersecting penciled lines became the ultimate geometric composition. Her gridlike abstractions were also noted for their light-soaked appearance and quiet effect. In the 1970s she produced printed equivalents of her paintings; a notable series of silkscreens, On a Clear Day (1973), was produced after her mathematically annotated sketches. Martin was one of the leading practitioners of Abstract Expressionism in the 20th century.

Martin, Agnes (Bernice) (1912– ) painter; born in Maklin, Saskatchewan, Canada. After studying art at Columbia University (M.A. 1954), she settled in New York City. Known for her use of acrylic paint in her delicate and quiet grids, she is associated with the minimalist school, as seen in Play (1966). She lived in New Mexico from 1967.