Memoir of the relationship between the painter Agnes Martin and her assistant and friend Donald Woodman

The first biography of visionary artist Agnes Martin, one of the most original and influential painters of the postwar period Over the course of a career that spanned fifty years, Agnes Martin’s austere, serene work anticipated and helped to define Minimalism, even as she battled psychological crises and carved out a solitary existence in the American Southwest. Martin identified with the Abstract Expressionists but her commitment to linear geometry caused her to be associated in turn with Minimalist, feminist, and even outsider artists. She moved through some of the liveliest art communities of her time while maintaining a legendary reserve. “I paint with my back to the world,” she says both at the beginning and at the conclusion of a documentary filmed when she was in her late eighties. When she died at ninety-two, in Taos, New Mexico, it is said she had not read a newspaper in half a century. No substantial critical monograph exists on this acclaimed artist—the recipient of two career retrospectives as well as the National Medal of the Arts—who was championed by critics as diverse in their approaches as Lucy Lippard, Lawrence Alloway, and Rosalind Krauss. Furthermore, no attempt has been made to describe her extraordinary life. The whole engrossing story, told here for the first time, Agnes Martin is essential reading for anyone interested in abstract art or the history of women artists in America.

The only complete career retrospective of this visionary painter - a classic, now available again in a handsome new binding. Agnes Martin's career spanned over seven decades. Though a major influence on Minimalist painters, Martin saw her own work more closely related to Abstract Expressionism, her paintings being meditations on innocence, beauty, happiness and love.' This much-anticipated reissue of Arne Glimcher's highly-acclaimed book presents 130 of Martin's paintings and drawings alongside her previously unpublished writings and lecture notes. Glimcher's illuminating introduction, his personal memories of visits to Martin at her studio, and their correspondence throughout her career, reveal many insights into the artist's life and work.

A groundbreaking survey of the work of Agnes Martin (1912-2004), one of the pre-eminent painters of the twentieth century - offering a rich overview of her subtle yet powerful art.

Agnes Martin has spent every morning for the past 40 years working in her New Mexico studio, producing square abstract paintings that consist of graphite horizontal lines across fields of white, gray, or pale colors. Though her work superficially belongs to the history of Minimalism, Martin considers her paintings the abstract expression of positive inner states of existence. Published on the occasion of her 90th birthday, this catalogue presents the iconic serenity and elegant geometry of her canvasses from the past decade, in a format complimentary to Martin's own immutable aesthetic.

"This is an intimate and revealing biography of Agnes Martin, renowned American painter, considered one of the great women artists of the 20th and 21st Century. A resident of both New Mexico and New York City, Martin has always remained an enigma due to her fiercely guarded private life. Henry Martin, award-winning writer, and art scholar, having access to those who were close to Agnes Martin--friends, family, former lovers--has given (gives) us a full portrait of this universally revered artist. Readers will learn of her bouts with mental illness, her several significant lesbian relationships, and her lifelong yearning for recognition despite her reclusive lifestyle and need for privacy. Arriving in the wake of major international retrospective exhibitions of her work from London's Tate Modern, LACMA in Los Angeles, and the Guggenheim in New York City, this book provides a perspective of Agnes Martin that has not been seen in earlier, more academic works or fine-art monographs. Certain to be a mainstay for readers of the arts, and admirers of the creative spirit, this book also includes rare photographs from Martin's family and friends, many of which have never appeared in a book before"--

Now in its third printing, this collection of letters, journals, and lectures is the standard collection of writings by the artist. "I suggest that people who like to be alone, who walk alone, will perhaps be serious workers in the art field."--Agnes Martin.