.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
“My paintings have neither object, nor space, nor line, nor anything—nor forms. They are…about formlessness, breaking down form. You wouldn’t think of form by the ocean.” - Agnes Martin
One of the earliest examples of Agnes Martin’s highly sophisticated ‘grid’ canvases, Untitled is a standard of postwar art. The blank slate offered up by this format allowed the artist to spend nearly five decades pursuing the endless freedom and opportunity that working within this prescribed pattern afforded her. It was in 1960 that the grid first appeared in her work, and that year proved to be a pivotal one for Martin, who at the time was based in Coenties Slip in Lower Manhattan. She was in her late forties, working in a communal studio, and living in a primitive loft that lacked running water or heat. It was there that she would embrace her signature motif. A small, jewel-like painting, the present work is comprised of tiny dots that Martin made with the touch of her brush and arranged within repeating horizontal lines. It’s cool, gray palette anticipates the subtle, elegant restraint of the iconic grid paintings of the 1960s, whose tenets are already established in this key, early work.
Untitled is a simple, declarative statement; the square canvas format, the reliance on a border, the use of penciled lines, and the centrally aligned grid motif would all become staples of Martin’s work. She used a small brush loaded with grayish-white paint to apply a series of minute dots, which she organizes into rows of repeating lines. Imperfections of the brush are allowed and even desired; Martin worked in a square format but relished the sort of dissonance that occurred when the grid was slightly off square. The muted tonal harmonies in Untitled would also serve her well, as most of her classic 1960s paintings would assert themselves in gray, cream, and taupe tones. Along the extreme edges, Martin has drawn a graphite line to create a thin border, which acts as a visual framing device for the piece. Here we can see that she has already developed the fundamentals of her signature motif. As such, the painting declares itself to be exactly what it is—the vehicle through which all subsequent work would flow.
For Martin, the grid format offered endless possibilities. It had form and yet it had no form. It was concrete and yet it was immaterial. Most importantly, it presented itself as a kind of blank slate. As the years progressed, the grid proved to be a universal field through which the viewer’s mind could unfurl, reaching a state of pure bliss, similar to the feeling of rapt attention that one feels when looking out at the ocean or a beautiful mountain vista. As an artist who purposefully separated herself from the New York art world, choosing instead to live in the remote mountains of New Mexico, Martin pursued a simple, monastic existence. She spent years studying the spiritual teachings of Taoist and Buddhist philosophy. She watched cloud patterns for days, looking to see if a single cloud ever repeated its shape. It did not. In speaking of her grid paintings, she said simply, “My paintings have neither object, nor space, nor line, nor anything—nor forms. They are…about formlessness, breaking down form. You wouldn’t think of form by the ocean” (A. Martin, quoted in D. Schwarz, ed., Agnes Martin: Writings/Schriften, 1992, p. 7).
The genesis of these paintings dates to 1960, at which time Martin was living in an abandoned, run-down building on the waterfront in lower Manhattan. “The Slip” was home to a core group of artists who would align themselves in opposition to the prevailing strategies of the Abstract Expressionists who were living in Greenwich Village and who had dominated the American art scene in the 1950s. When Martin moved there in 1957, it was at the suggestion of Betty Parsons, who helped her find a place to live and work. She was also introduced to the artists already living in the area who numbered Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly, James Rosenquist, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and Lenore Tawney among them.
Once in New York, Martin’s work changed rapidly, as she switched from the biomorphic abstractions of the fifties in favor of simple geometric shapes, which ultimately gave way to the grid. At the time, Barnett Newman and Ad Reinhardt—both friends of Martin—were also stripping their work of any recognizable content in favor of pared-down geometric elements that they infused with aspects of the sublime. The seeds of Minimalism were germinating at The Slip, and Martin is now recognized as one of its greatest pioneers.
For Martin, the blank slate offered by the grid would serve her well, as it presented endless possibilities and proved to be the perfect vehicle for her search for absolute spiritual truths. Once she discovered this motif, she worked with a new commitment and resolve. It proved to be the ultimate liberating principle.
One of the earliest examples of Agnes Martin’s highly sophisticated ‘grid’ canvases, Untitled is a standard of postwar art. The blank slate offered up by this format allowed the artist to spend nearly five decades pursuing the endless freedom and opportunity that working within this prescribed pattern afforded her. It was in 1960 that the grid first appeared in her work, and that year proved to be a pivotal one for Martin, who at the time was based in Coenties Slip in Lower Manhattan. She was in her late forties, working in a communal studio, and living in a primitive loft that lacked running water or heat. It was there that she would embrace her signature motif. A small, jewel-like painting, the present work is comprised of tiny dots that Martin made with the touch of her brush and arranged within repeating horizontal lines. It’s cool, gray palette anticipates the subtle, elegant restraint of the iconic grid paintings of the 1960s, whose tenets are already established in this key, early work.
Untitled is a simple, declarative statement; the square canvas format, the reliance on a border, the use of penciled lines, and the centrally aligned grid motif would all become staples of Martin’s work. She used a small brush loaded with grayish-white paint to apply a series of minute dots, which she organizes into rows of repeating lines. Imperfections of the brush are allowed and even desired; Martin worked in a square format but relished the sort of dissonance that occurred when the grid was slightly off square. The muted tonal harmonies in Untitled would also serve her well, as most of her classic 1960s paintings would assert themselves in gray, cream, and taupe tones. Along the extreme edges, Martin has drawn a graphite line to create a thin border, which acts as a visual framing device for the piece. Here we can see that she has already developed the fundamentals of her signature motif. As such, the painting declares itself to be exactly what it is—the vehicle through which all subsequent work would flow.
For Martin, the grid format offered endless possibilities. It had form and yet it had no form. It was concrete and yet it was immaterial. Most importantly, it presented itself as a kind of blank slate. As the years progressed, the grid proved to be a universal field through which the viewer’s mind could unfurl, reaching a state of pure bliss, similar to the feeling of rapt attention that one feels when looking out at the ocean or a beautiful mountain vista. As an artist who purposefully separated herself from the New York art world, choosing instead to live in the remote mountains of New Mexico, Martin pursued a simple, monastic existence. She spent years studying the spiritual teachings of Taoist and Buddhist philosophy. She watched cloud patterns for days, looking to see if a single cloud ever repeated its shape. It did not. In speaking of her grid paintings, she said simply, “My paintings have neither object, nor space, nor line, nor anything—nor forms. They are…about formlessness, breaking down form. You wouldn’t think of form by the ocean” (A. Martin, quoted in D. Schwarz, ed., Agnes Martin: Writings/Schriften, 1992, p. 7).
The genesis of these paintings dates to 1960, at which time Martin was living in an abandoned, run-down building on the waterfront in lower Manhattan. “The Slip” was home to a core group of artists who would align themselves in opposition to the prevailing strategies of the Abstract Expressionists who were living in Greenwich Village and who had dominated the American art scene in the 1950s. When Martin moved there in 1957, it was at the suggestion of Betty Parsons, who helped her find a place to live and work. She was also introduced to the artists already living in the area who numbered Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly, James Rosenquist, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and Lenore Tawney among them.
Once in New York, Martin’s work changed rapidly, as she switched from the biomorphic abstractions of the fifties in favor of simple geometric shapes, which ultimately gave way to the grid. At the time, Barnett Newman and Ad Reinhardt—both friends of Martin—were also stripping their work of any recognizable content in favor of pared-down geometric elements that they infused with aspects of the sublime. The seeds of Minimalism were germinating at The Slip, and Martin is now recognized as one of its greatest pioneers.
For Martin, the blank slate offered by the grid would serve her well, as it presented endless possibilities and proved to be the perfect vehicle for her search for absolute spiritual truths. Once she discovered this motif, she worked with a new commitment and resolve. It proved to be the ultimate liberating principle.