The Early Work of Agnes Martin

Since the American artist Agnes Martin's (1912-2004) first retrospective in 1973, her career has been divided into two periods: early work from 1957-1967 and later work from 1974-2004, separated by Martin's retreat from painting from 1967 through 1974. This accepted chronology neglects the formative phase of Martin's development from 1940-1957, which provides the terms that define all of Martin's subsequent work. This revision complicates the teleology of Martin's work by suggesting unresolved, contingent, and rapidly evolving creative processes and pictorial solutions-in contrast to the rigid focus and reduced means of her paintings after 1974. The first chapter investigates the development of Martin's formal language at the University of New Mexico after the Second World War. The second chapter discusses the surrealist and biomorphic abstractions Martin created in New York and Taos between 1951 and 1957. This section further traces the networks of artists Martin established from San Francisco to New York, allowing her to engage in serious artistic discourse. The third chapter describes Martin's return to New York in 1957, her representation by Betty Parsons and her increasingly geometric abstractions, as Martin evaluated the approaches of Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhardt and Mark Rothko against her emerging vision. The fourth chapter documents the end of Martin's apprenticeship and suggests, in distinction to established narratives, the breadth of Martin's quest for a singular model of abstraction. Seeking a departure from Abstract Expressionism while living on Coenties Slip, Martin drew upon her work in Taos while experimenting with Assemblage and Pop. The conclusion traces the evolution of Martin's grid paintings, her move to the Robert Elkon Gallery and the widespread misreading of Martin's work as Minimalist, which spawned a persistently reductive understanding of her art. This dissertation argues that the innovations of Martin's grid paintings were the result of two decades of continual experimentation and self-critical discernment. As such, Martin's early work resists conventional periodization. Utilizing an object-based approach that integrates art history with conservation, this dissertation brings scholarly attention to an overlooked aspect of Martin's career.