agnes martin (1912-2004), a STRONG and DETERMINED woman*…
- abstract, minimalist painter, contemporary of Jackson Pollock
- opposed the cult of personality but at the same time facilitated the same
- nearly became an Olympic swimmer
- training to be a teacher up until her 40s
- encountered art through the teacher training programs
- starts practicing art in middle life, continues into old age
- gay, working class background
- first solo show at 46
- valued freedom from the cares of the world
- became well-known for her work with the grid
- had a bad relationship with her mother
- went through a period where she was focused in becoming famous but later became a zen mystic…”the greatest sin is pride”
- made work and destroyed if she didn’t like it, did this into her eighties
- wanted her paintings to evoke beauty, quiet, happiness
- paranoid schizophrenic—was forceably incarcerated in a mental institute during an episode
- was given shock therapy about 100 times
- leaves the art world in 1967 as she was becoming successful
- lived in extremely solitary ways
- friendships and relationships were challenging
- not interested in making things that were palatable for a gallery
- offered a solo show at the Whitney, she’s asked for a biography, she says cancel the show—I will not be labelled
- a gay person living through the time of the “lavender scare”
- i’m not a lesbian, i’m not a woman, i’m a doorknob
- starts painting again in 1973
- lives a pioneer life
- pets and lovers are too distracting
- continues to make work right up until she dies (2004)
- refusal, renunciation, silence
Other research notes on agnes martin: I have worked, I have lived in, the distraction of food, cats and dogs, tell them i said no
* notes from a conversation between Jennifer Higgie and author Olivia Laing in the Bow Down podcast