Lot 64: l - AGNES MARTIN

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 20^th 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.