Author: Suzanne P. Hudson File Type: pdf A close examination of Agnes Martins grid painting in luminous blue and gold. Agnes Martins Night Sea (1963) is a large canvas of hand-drawn rectangular grids painted in luminous blue and gold. In this illustrated study, Suzanne Hudson presents the painting as the work of an artist who was also a thinker, poet, and writer for whom self-presentation was a necessary part of making her works public. With Night Sea, Hudson argues, Martin (19122004) created a shimmering realization of control and loss that stands alone within her suite of classic grid paintings as an exemplary and exceptional achievement. Hudson offers a close examination of Night Sea and its position within Martins long and prolific career, during which the artist destroyed many works as she sought forms of perfection within self-imposed restrictions of color and line. For Hudson, Night Sea stands as the last of Martins process-based works before she turned from oil to acrylic and sought to express emotions of lightness and purity unburdened by evidence of human struggle. Drawing from a range of archival records, Hudson attempts to draw together the facts surrounding the work, which were at times obfuscated by the artists desire for privacy. Critical responses of the time give a sense of the impact of the work and that which followed it. Texts by peers including Lenore Tawney, Donald Judd, and Lucy Lippard are presented alongside interviews with a number of Martins friends and keepers of estates, such as the publisher Ronald Feldman and Kathleen Mangan of the Lenore Tawney archive, which holds correspondence between Martin and Tawney. **Review Inher wonderful contribution to the Afterall Books One Work series,SuzanneHudson persuasively argues that Agnes Martins 1963 paintingNight Seais thesumma of the early grid paintings. Because, as Hudson shows,Night SeamakesMartins processand indeed Martins strugglesovisible, we comprehend muchmore clearly what follows the achievedperfection of the graphite grid paintings.That an analysis of a singlework could so fully illuminate the entirety ofan artistsoeuvre is a true accomplishment. Plus, the prose is apleasure to read. (Douglas Crimp, Fanny Knapp Allen Professor of Art History at the University of Rochester) About the Author Suzanne Hudson is Associate Professor of Art History and Fine Art at the University of Southern California. She is the author of Robert Ryman Used Paint (MIT Press) and Painting Now.

Author: Polybius File Type: pdf