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Agnes Fulton Martin Sold at Auction Prices

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May. 20, 2007
Agnes Martin (American, 1912-2004) On a Clear Day, 1973; Screenprint (framed); Signed and numbered 30/50; 11 1/2" x 11 1/2" (sight); Printer: Domberger, Stuttgart; Publisher: Parasol Press, New York; Provenance: Private Collection, St. Louis
Est: $2,500 - $3,000
Agnes Martin (American, 1912-2004) On a Clear Day, 1973; Screenprint (framed); Signed and numbered 30/50; 11 1/2" x 11 1/2" (sight); Printer: Domberger, Stuttgart; Publisher: Parasol Press, New York; Provenance: Private Collection, St. Louis
Rago Arts and Auction Center
Nov. 14, 2006
l - AGNES MARTIN
Est: $1,400,000 - $1,800,000
1912-2004 I LOVE LIFE 60 x 60 in. 152.4 x 152.4 cm. signed and dated 2001 on the reverse; titled on the stretcher acrylic and graphite on canvas PROVENANCE PaceWildenstein, New York Private Collection NOTE The luminous I Love Life is one of the most pristine and radiating examples of Agnes Martin's late work. The transcendent sky blues and soft pencil lines emerge from the carefully synthesized white planar surface to formulate a geometric masterpiece, a rigorously reductive work reminiscent of early 20th Century precursors such as the Russian Suprematist works of Kasimir Malevich and the Dutch Neo-Plastic compositions of Piet Mondrian. Horizontally composed and carefully meditated, Martin's compositions remained constant throughout her oeuvre, with varying degrees of separation between the inscribed pencil lines and thinly layered bands of paint. Martin's late works however, display an interest beyond geometry alone and play with subtle hues of color, deriving from the inspirational atmosphere of the New Mexican landscape that surrounded her. Within the delicacy of the application of her paint--diluted acrylic combined with the chalky whites of her gesso-- Martin's colors both absorb and reflect light. Her medium and spare touches of color seek to create an 'aura' rather than mimic nature. In the purity and simplicity of Martin's late work, a kinship with the work of Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman can be seen. Like them, she sought the intangible, divine, abstract sublime, aspiring through nonrepresentational means to a `spiritual otherness' and believing that "Art is the concrete representation of our most subtle feelings". Executed in 2001, I Love Life was created at a point in the artist's life when she had achieved true inner serenity and this is evident in the optimism of her late work. The meditative landscape of New Mexican mesa and desert spoke to Martin's soul and inspired endless possibilities for experimentation and permutation. These late abstract works, meticulously executed, are positive in tone and abundant with human emotion, revealed literally through the titles of the paintings such as the present work, I Love Life. The late works of Martin's oeuvre are the culmination of her experience and consecrate the sacred relationship she shared with her surroundings.
Sotheby's
Nov. 14, 2006
AGNES MARTIN
Est: $1,500,000 - $2,000,000
1912-2004 UNTITLED IV 72 x 72 in. 183 x 183 cm. signed and dated 1981 on the reverse acrylic and graphite on canvas PROVENANCE Pace Gallery, New York (acquired directly from the artist in 1982) Acquired by the present owner from the above in 1989 EXHIBITED New York, Pace Gallery, Agnes Martin: New Paintings, December 1982 - January 1983 NOTE In 1967, Agnes Martin left New York and abandoned painting in a restless quest for emotional re-invigoration. She traveled through Canada and the western United States, finally settling in New Mexico where she had studied and taught in the 1940s and early 1950s. In 1968, Martin built her home by hand near a remote mesa. Seven years after leaving New York, she returned to painting in the rustic environment of her beloved New Mexican landscape. Her dormant creativity awakened with a renewed vigor and ebullient palette, and the artist considered these works to be her most abstract and liberated. In the paintings of the 1970s and 1980s, such as the present work, color and area had now become transcendent over line. Martin's tremulous pencil markings of the 1960s yielded to broader bands of lightly tinted color, often inspired by her sandstone and open sky surroundings. From afar, these bands of color can appear flattened and regulated, but up close her brushwork is in fact remarkably dynamic and gradated, yielding varying glimpses of the white primer layer beneath. In the present Untitled, color becomes dematerialized and light seems to emanate from the canvas. Martin felt deeply that an artist should aspire to represent and reveal reality through their creations, not in a literal sense but in a deeper and more emotive, philosophical and profound manner. As she wrote, "We are in the midst of reality responding with joy. It is an absolutely satisfying experience but extremely elusive... Works of art have successfully represented our response to reality from the beginning. The artist tries to live in a way that will make greater awareness of the sublimity of reality possible. Reality, the truth about life and the mystery of beauty are all the same and they are the first concerns of everyone." (Dieter Schwarz, ed., Agnes Martin: Writings, Ostfildern, 1992, p. 93)
Sotheby's

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