Agnes Martin’s explorations of beauty, meditation and emotion were enduring themes in her life and art. Born in rural Canada in 1912, Martin migrated to the United States at the age of twenty. She developed an interest in art during her studies in Washington, New York and in New Mexico, igniting a lifelong relationship between the artist and this vast region in the southwestern United States.

In 1957, Agnes Martin moved to New York and took up residence in Coenties Slip in Lower Manhattan, a run-down waterfront district offering cheap studio lofts in former industrial buildings. There she lived alongside and developed friendships with younger artists including Ellsworth Kelly and Robert Indiana, while the leading abstractionists Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko and Ad Reinhardt were inspiration for her artistic pursuits. Contrasting the energy of this period of artistic revolution, Martin’s longtime interest in Zen Buddhism and Taoism also deeply influenced her unique approach to making art, such as her heightened sensitivity to nature.

In pursuit of solitude, Martin left New York in 1967 and travelled across the United States and Canada before ultimately settling in New Mexico, following in the path of artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe. There she took up her work again in 1974 with a focus and discipline that allowed her to continue producing highly distinctive and visionary paintings. In her mature career, Martin maintained an extraordinary output, working consistently on representing her unique vision of the world through her art, until her death in 2004.