Blue-Grey Composition (1962)

The Canadian artist Agnes Martin (1912-2004) moved to the United States in 1931, where she spent most of her life.

Settling in New York in 1957, Martin joined a community of artists that included Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly, and Lenore Tawney. In this creative environment, her work evolved: she abandoned abstract paintings with blurred lines, influenced by Rothko and evoking landscapes, to create monochrome paintings in clearly defined grids, whose striking originality attracted the attention of critics and her peers.

Painted in 1962, Blue-Grey Composition is typical of Agnes Martin's work in the mid-1960s. The artist adopted the square format, which she would continue to use throughout her life. Previously composed of large horizontal bands of colour, her painting gradually shifted towards a palette of grays and browns. Drawing lines and shapes by hand, she worked with oil on unprepared canvases, playing with the irregularity of the surfaces, of the consequent movements and tremors.

The limited edition of the same name is a pigment inkjet print on Hahnemühle William Turner 310g paper, produced from the original work as part of a collaboration between Éditions Dilecta and Pinault Collection for the Minimal exhibition, in which the artist’s works are shown at the Bourse de Commerce until January 19th, 2025.

The Estate of Agnes Martin is represented by Pace Gallery (New York, Los Angeles, London, Geneva, Berlin, Seoul, Tokyo). Her work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, 1962, 1965, 1966), the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York, 1964, 1966), MoMA (New York, 1965, 1973), and in numerous galleries around the world.