Agnes Martin

In 1997 Agnes Martin received the Golden Lion for her achievement as an artist, one of the highest honors awarded by the Venice Biennale. Tribute was paid to the work of an artist who evades categorization: Even though Agnes Martin was linked to Minimal Art due to her focus on given structures, her floating abstractions do not follow a geometrical set of rules. The lines and stripes that the artist draws by hand irregularly and gently structure the white or delicately toned strips of color.nThis publication presents for the first time new works by the American artist, which were created after her extensive retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1993. Its spacious design is in accordance with the still, contemplative works, which are featured in color throughout the entire book. The text contributions contained in the publication - an essay by Ned Rifkin, director of the Menil Collection in Houston, and a poem by the American poet Edward Hirsch -acknowledge Agnes Martin's important position in 20thcentury art.nnThe artist:nAgnes Martin, born 1912 in Maklin, Saskatchewan (Canada). Moves to the United States in 1932. Studies art history at Columbia University, New York from 1941-1954. Teaches extensively. Participation in the Kassel documenta in 1972 and 1977. Jawlensky- Award of the city of Wiesbaden in 1991. Lives and works in New Mexico.nnExhibition Schedule: The Menil Collection, Houston, February 1- May 26, 2002nn''The calm of Martin's paintings is a sea calm - despite the pacific horizontality, something of the surface still moves. [..] Her paintings point to perfection for those like her, already secure and centered enough to imagine it. For others, perhaps these paintings at least help to center. It is good to be alone with them.''