Agnes Martin, Tate Modern

Culture Whisper says ★★★★★
Below is our preview, giving background information about the show



Agnes Martin exhibition Tate 2015
The Tate Modern, London presents the first retrospective of American painter Agnes Martin since her death in 2004. The Tate exhibition follows a trail of shows by trailblazing female artists like Phyllida Barlow, Marlene Dumas, Sonia Delaunay and the forthcoming Barbara Hepworth retrospective, who have made a significant contribution to the canon of modern and contemporary art.
Agnes Martin paintings
Martin’s wonderfully serene grid canvases are best known as examples of American Minimalist painting. However, Martin, who was deeply influenced by Zen Buddism and Taoism, always preferred the spiritual and emotional outpourings of Abstract Expressionism. You’ll love Martin’s work for the subtlety of its construction. The rational grid systems of her paintings, which contrast with their delicate colour washes, were made by superimposing a network of pencil lines on fine-grained canvas, stained with colour. These works were deeply influenced Minimalist artists like Sol LeWitt and were an inspiration to the younger generation such as Eva Hesse and Ellen Gallagher.
Agnes Martin biography
Canadian-born Martin established her career in New York at the height of Abstraction, where she lived in same neighbourhood as fellow painters like Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Indiana and James Rosenquist. In 1958, she held her first one-woman exhibition at Betty Parsons Gallery, a bold move in the macho world of Abstraction. Just as she was gaining critical acclaim for her work, Martin swapped the buzz of New York for the calm of New Mexico in 1967, eschewing painting for writing. She returned to painting in 1973, which marked a change in her palette from black, brown and white to the famous shimmering light pastel colour washes. From then on until her death at the age of 92, she exhibited regularly.
Tate | Agnes Martin
The Tate exhibition 2015 traces the entire trajectory of Martin’s artistic career, from her early works to experiments with different media, found objects and geometric shapes, and of course her iconic grid paintings. Expect to see a wide scope of Martin’s grids and their evolution, from the glittering sparkle of the gold-leaf and gesso in Friendship (1963) to the peaceful Happy Holiday (1999), in which the symmetry of her grid lines give way to horizontal bands and the sensation of gazing into the sunset. Despite their rational exterior, Martin’s paintings are deeply emotive and meditative.