Original Agnes Martin Vintage Taos New Mexico American Abstract Harvest Still Life Oil on Canvas Painting

Lovely original vintage abstract still life, by Taos artist, Agnes Bernice Martin. An early work by the artist, displays the cusp of her previous works, inspired by her stay in the New Mexico desert; with bright colors, in a harvest still life of corn, New Mexico pottery, and onions.

Agnes Bernice Martin was born in 1912, to Scottish Presbyterian farmers in Macklin, Saskatchewan, one of four children. From 1919, she grew up in Vancouver. She moved to the United States in 1931, to help her pregnant sister Mirabell, in Bellingham, Washington. She preferred American higher education and became an American citizen, in 1950. Martin studied at Western Washington University College of Education, Bellingham, Washington, prior to receiving her B.A. (1942) from Teachers College, Columbia University. In 1947, she attended the Summer Field School of the University of New Mexico in Taos, New Mexico. After hearing lectures by the Zen Buddhist scholar D. T. Suzuki at Columbia, she became interested in Asian thought, not as a religious discipline, but as a code of ethics, a practical how-to for getting through life.

A few years following graduation, Martin matriculated at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, where she also taught art courses before returning to Columbia University to earn her M.A. (1952).

Agnes Martin’s earliest datable works are landscapes she painted as a student and teacher in New Mexico, in the late 1940s. Created outdoors, they capture her love for the desert environment she would call home not just during this early period but for over thirty years in the later part of her life.

Some think this rich creative environment in New Mexico caused Martin to seek out abstract art during her early periods in New York City, as she had already started making biomorphic, abstract works while in the Southwest.

Ref: https://www.guggenheim.org/arts-curriculum/topic/early-work

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She moved to New York City in 1957 and lived in a loft in Coenties Slip, in lower Manhattan. She left New York City in 1967, disappearing from the art world to live alone. After eighteen months on the road, Martin settled in Cuba, New Mexico(1968-1977), and then Galisteo, New Mexico (1977-1993). She built an adobe home for herself in each location. She lived alone all her adult life. In 1993, she moved to a retirement residence in Taos, New Mexico; where she lived until her death in 2004.

Her work is most closely associated with Taos, with some of her early work visibly inspired by the desert environment of New Mexico. She moved to New York City after being discovered by the artist/gallery owner Betty Parsons in 1957. That year, she settled in Coenties Slip in lower Manhattan, where her friends and neighbors, several of whom were also affiliated with Parsons, included Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly, and Jack Youngerman. Barnett Newman actively promoted Martin's work, and helped install Martin's exhibitions at Betty Parsons Gallery beginning in the late 1950s. Another close friend and mentor was Ad Reinhardt. In 1961, Martin contributed a brief introduction to a brochure for her friend Lenore Tawney's first solo exhibition, the only occasion on which she wrote on the work of a fellow artist. In 1967, Reinhardt died and the studio at Coenties Slip was slated for demolition. After Martin left New York, she drove about the western US and Canada, deciding to settle in Cuba, New Mexico for a few years (1968-1977), then settled in Galisteo, New Mexico (1977-1993). In both New Mexico homes, she built adobe brick structures herself.

She did not paint for seven years and consciously distanced herself from the social life and social events that brought other artists into the public eye. She collaborated with architect Bill Katz in 1974, on a log cabin she would use as her studio. That same year, she completed a group of new paintings and from 1975, they were exhibited regularly.

Agnes Martin
(1912-2004)
Still Life with Various New Mexico Pottery and Harvest Vegetables, (onion and corn)
Oil on Canvas
Signed lower right with New Mexico/Native symbol, under signature
Hand signed verso, in ink, upper left corner, with copywrite symbol
Painting measures approximately 24" X 30", plus frame
Estimated to have been created approximately 1945
Painting is in excellent original condition. There is one tiny spot missing, to the far right. Frame is also in excellent condition

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