{"data":{"id":"842","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":842,"topgoose_id":1339,"tms_id":842,"display_name":"Agnes Martin","sort_name":"Martin Agnes","display_date":"1912–2004","begin_date":"1912","end_date":"2004","biography":"\u003cp\u003eThroughout the more than five decades of her career, Agnes Martin made works using a spare, formal vocabulary and a delicate, subtly variegated palette. Martin was among a vibrant group of artists—including \u003ca href=\"/artists/688\"\u003eEllsworth Kelly\u003c/a\u003e, \u003ca href=\"/artists/638\"\u003eRobert Indiana\u003c/a\u003e, and \u003ca href=\"/artists/1124\"\u003eJames Rosenquist\u003c/a\u003e—who settled in the Coenties Slip neighborhood of Manhattan in the late 1950s. Martin established her reputation as one of the foremost abstract artists of the postwar era with six-foot-square canvases delineated with overall grid patterns; in 1967, however, she moved to Taos, New Mexico, and ceased painting until 1974. When she began working again she shifted to compositions of horizontal bands of color defined by graphite lines, a body of work exemplified by \u003ca href=\"/collection/works/8452\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Islands.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom a distance or in photographs, the twelve pale, identically sized paintings of \u003cem\u003eThe Islands\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003eappear indistinguishable. As with most of Martin’s works, they are almost impossible to capture accurately in reproduction; the experience of viewing them in person is essential to appreciating and understanding her art. Only then can the variances in the faint graphite markings and the ethereal, horizontal washes of color that differentiate the twelve canvases be noted. Among her most ambitious and monumental works, \u003cem\u003eThe Islands\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003eenvelops\nviewers in a contemplative environment in\nwhich they can become attuned to the\nsublime qualities of light and atmosphere as\nwell as to their own reactions to the work.\nWhile Martin’s commitment to nonobjective\npainting and her disavowal of ego in art\nhave sometimes led to her association\nwith Minimalism, her work is hardly devoid\nof expression and emotion. “Everything,”\nshe said, “is about feeling.”\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500024489","wikidata_id":"Q275610","created_at":"2017-08-30T16:21:18.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-04-11T07:02:08.958-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/842/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/842/exhibitions"}}}}