AGNES MARTIN | Untitled

Collection of Robert Elkon, New York (acquired directly from the artist in 1965)
Thence by descent to the present owner

Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, Institute of Contemporary Art; Pasadena Museum of Modern Art, Agnes Martin, January - May 1973, p. 39
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art; Milwaukee Art Museum, Miami, Center for the Fine Arts; Houston, Contemporary Arts Museum; Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Agnes Martin, November 1992 - February 1994
London, The Tate Modern; Dusseldorf, Kunstammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Agnes Martin, June 2015 - January 2017, p. 259

This work is in very good condition overall. There is a rippling to the sheet, inherent to the artist’s working method and chosen medium. Under close inspection, the sheet has discolored slightly with age, and the extreme edges of the sheet are lightly more time-stained as a result of a previous matting and darker discolorations are visible along the top edge where previous hinges were attached. Also under close inspection, there is a pinpoint spot accretion in the lower left margin. The sheet is hinged verso to the mat along the top edge. Framed under Plexiglas.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

A gem-like construction of subtle sky blues and pale pinks, the present Untitled by Agnes Martin is an early work on paper by the artist to employ the infamous structured grid that would form the foundation of her artistic legacy. Untitled exemplifies Martin's astounding and unparalleled ability to impart profound poignancy within the simplest and sparest of artistic vernaculars. Rather than merely representing a formal strategy, Martin’s reductive visual language conveys her emotional response to nature and transmits the experience of beauty and lightness in their essence. Inspiring contemplation, even meditation, Martin’s works on paper hint at spirituality as inherent in nature and allude to a transcendental reality. In the late 1950s, Robert Elkon was living in New York, already immersed in the Modern and Contemporary landscape, first through his own family’s collection, and second, as a burgeoning dealer with a sharp eye for emerging talent. A close friend of Elkon's—the famed dealer Leo Castelli—recognized Elkon's connoisseurial eye and urged him to open his own gallery. Though Elkon was not entirely convinced, Castelli promised to help establish Elkon's program by connecting him to his first artist: Agnes Martin. This chance encounter proved to be the start of a lifelong friendship and partnership between Robert, his wife Dorothea, and Martin. Elkon opened his eponymous gallery in 1961 and in November 1962, held the first of many solo exhibitions of Martin's work at his 1063 Madison Avenue space. As described by Barbara Rose, “the work [Elkon showed] was selected on a single criterion: Robert Elkon himself liked it. His gifts are a trained and selective eye and an enthusiasm for art that he willingly, indeed effusively, communicates…Elkon’s tenacity in continuing to operate his gallery as a contemporary art showcase for living artists…To serve the living artist, to listen sympathetically to the daily tales of woe, to show only what one likes oneself before the certificate of value has been attached—that is courage: The courage of an eye that believes in itself and in the enduring quality of art (Barbara Rose in Exh. Cat., New York, Robert Elkon: Two Decades, 1981, n.p.).

A testament to the mutual adoration between Martin and the Elkons, the artist presented Elkon with this exceptional work on paper in 1965, and it has remained in the Elkon Collection ever since. Untitled also bears the distinction of having toured with Martin's three most prestigious exhibitions in the last half-century: to the Institute for Contemporary Art, Philadelphia in 1973, the three-year international traveling retrospective exhibition that originated at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1992-1994 and, most recently, the four-venue retrospective assembled by the Tate Modern in London from 2015 to 2017.



This work will be included in an upcoming catalogue raisonné of Agnes Martin's works on paper to be published digitally by Artifex Press.