Agnes Martin moved to New York City when she was twenty. There she painted still lifes and biomorphic forms until arriving at the sublime minimalism for which she is best known. With no interest in hard-edge abstraction or the optical experiments of many of her contemporaries, Martin instead took her cues from both the meditative forms of Mark Rothko and the spiritualism of Paul Klee. Leaf in the Wind is an exquisite example of Martin’s distillation of pure form. Delicate lines of graphite delineate a grid filled with rectangles, and her light touch encourages private contemplation rather than a mandate of strained concepts or ideas. A deep connection with nature eventually led Martin to New Mexico in 1967, into a hermit-like existence in her handmade adobe at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. A several-year hiatus from painting ended in the early 1970s, and she continued to paint luminous, holistic works like this one until her death at age 92.
Details
- Artist Name: Agnes Martin (American, 1912-2004)
- Title: Leaf in the Wind
- Date: 1963
- Medium: Acrylic and graphite on canvas
- Dimensions: 75 x 75 x 7/8 in. (190.5 x 190.5 x 2.2 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, Gift of Nicholas Wilder in memory of Jordan Hunter (1949-1968)
- Accession Number: P.1969.103
- Copyright: © 2021 Agnes Martin Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Reproduction, including downloading of ARS works is prohibited by copyright laws and international conventions without the express written permission of Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Object Information
UNTITLED 1968
- San Francisco Museum of Art, 1968-11-09 to 1968-12-29
Agnes Martin
- University of Pennsylvania, Institute of Contemporary Art, 1973-01-17 to 1973-03-01
- Pasadena Museum of Modern Art, 1973-04-03 to 1973-05-27
Learning to Look: Line
- Norton Simon Museum, 2003-11-07 to 2004-02-23
Illumination: The Paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe, Agnes Pelton, Agnes Martin, and Florence Pierce
- Orange County Museum of Art, 2009-05-03 to 2009-09-06
Surface Truths: Abstract Painting in the Sixties
- Norton Simon Museum, 2011-03-25 to 2011-08-15
Permanent and Loan Collection, 1973
- Pasadena Museum of Modern Art, 1973-01-30 to 1973-12-31
Permanent and Loan Collection, 1974
- Pasadena Museum of Modern Art, 1974-03-16 to 1974-06-06
Recent Acquisitions, 1969
- Pasadena Art Museum, 1969-11-24 to 1970-01-18
Works from the Pasadena Art Museum
- Vancouver Art Gallery, 1970-04-14 to 1970-05-10
Radical Past: Contemporary Art and Music in Pasadena, 1960-1974
- Norton Simon Museum, 1999-02-07 to 1999-06-06
- Armory Center for the Arts, 1999-02-07 to 1999-04-11
- Art Center College of Design (Pasadena, Calif.), 1999-02-07 to 1999-04-25
- Pasadena Art Museum, Recent Acquisitions 1969, 1969, p. 10
- Reilly, Richard, The San Diego Union, 1970, p. E-10
- Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Agnes Martin, 1973, pp. 10, 35
- Christie's East, NY, Modern and Contemporary Art, 1980, no. 125 pp. 38-39
- Armory Center for the Arts/Art Center College of Design, Radical Past: Contemporary Art & Music in Pasadena, 1960-1974, 1999, p. 93
- Beckett, Sister Wendy, Sister Wendy's American Masterpieces, 2000, pp. 76-77
- Humblet, Claudine, La Nouvelle Abstraction Américaine 1950-1970, 2003, Vol. II p. 1247
- Suzanne Hudson, Agnes Martin: Night Sea, 2016, fig. 10 p. 72 ; p. [58] (ill.)
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