Artworks
Agnes Martin
Untitled II from Paintings and Drawings 1974-1990, 1991
One of ten lithographs created to accompany Martin's major retrospective at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam in 1991.
Discussing the initial inspiration behind the grid motif, Martin recalled that "...when I first made a grid I happened to be thinking of the innocence of trees and then this grid came into my mind and I thought it represented innocence, and I still do, and so I painted it and then I was satisfied. I thought, this is my vision." She also explained that “when I cover the square surfaces with rectangles it lightens the weight of the square, destroys its power.” Martin's works were the result of a painstaking process that, for her, expressed the importance of modesty and humility. Deceptively simple, they firmly eschew the burden of imagery, and are expressions of pure sensation.
While the grid is one of the most important and recognisable elements of Martin's oeuvre, she was not restrictive about the ways in which it could be deployed. As her work evolved, she incorporated the stripe as another key motif, working in dilute washes of pastel-toned acrylic paint.
Martin was also a printmaker of great significance, returning to the process throughout her life. After abandoning art in 1967, she returned to the creative arena with a series of thirty screenprints in 1973. The screenprint and lithography processes enabled her to achieve the crisp lines and sharp corners that were so important to her work, while also allowing for the extraordinary subtlety she sought in her dilute washes of colour.