Untitled #2

1985

American, 1912 - 2004

Agnes Martin built an adobe house on a remote mesa in New Mexico after leaving New York in 1967. She lived alone and painted with exacting consistency, mostly covering six-foot square canvases with horizontal graphite lines and painted bands of color. As a writer she commented, "One thing I like about Zen, it doesn't believe in achievement. I don't think the way to succeed is by doing something aggressive. Aggression is weak-minded."

The adventurous state of mind is a high house.
To enjoy life the adventurous state of mind must be grasped and maintained.
The essential feature of adventure is that it is a going forward into unknown territory.
The joy of adventure is unaccountable.
This is the attractiveness of art work. It is adventurous, strenuous and joyful.

(Agnes Martin, 1973)

Acrylic on canvas

72 x 72 in. (182.88 x 182.88 cm)

Gift of The American Art Foundation

95.39

Provenance: Pace Gallery, New York City; gift from the American Art Foundation to the Seattle Art Museum, May 4, 1995

Photo: Elizabeth Mann

Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States", March 16 - October 27, 2013

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "Elles: SAM - Singular Works by Seminal Women Artists," October 06, 2012 - February 17, 2013

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "Order and Border", February 26, 2010 - August 28, 2011

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "International Abstraction: Making Painting Real, Part II", August 15, 2003 - February 29, 2004

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum in collaboration with the Shaker Museum and Library, Old Chatham, New York, "Creating Perfection: Shaker Objects and Their Affinities", October 5, 2000 - April 29, 2001

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "Minimalism: Aftermath and Affinities," March 27- August 25, 1996

Brussels, Belgium, Galerie Isy Brachot, "Portrait of an American Gallery: The Pace Gallery," April 19-June 23, 1990

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

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