Agnes Martin

Morning

1965

© Estate of Agnes Martin / DACS, 2018

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Not on display

Artist: Agnes Martin 1912–2004
Medium: Acrylic paint and graphite on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 1826 x 1819 mm
frame: 1840 x 1832 x 43 mm
vitrine : 2075 x 2070 x 90 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Purchased 1974
Reference: T01866

Display caption

''I had to leave out a lot of things that one expects to see in a painting'', Martin has said of this work. ''I was painting about happiness and bliss and they are very simple states of mind I guess. Morning is a wonderful dawn, soft and fresh.'' She began making delicate hand-drawn grids in 1960. This painting is based on a rectangular system of co-ordinates, but the total effect is like an atmospheric veil.

Gallery label, September 2004

Catalogue entry

Agnes Martin born 1912

T01866 Morning 1965

Inscribed "'Morning" | 1965 a.martin' on back of canvas
Acrylic and pencil on canvas, 71 7/8 x 71 5/8 (182.7 x 182)
Purchased from the Mayor Gallery (Grant-in-Aid) 1974
Prov: With Mayor Gallery, London (purchased from the artist 1974)
Exh: Fundamentele Schilderkunst, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, April-June 1975 (Martin 5, repr.)
Repr: The Tate Gallery 1974-6 (London 1976), p.46

The artist wrote on 19 May 1975:

'I began painting the 72 x 72 inch format in 1960 and I am still using it ...

'When I painted "Morning" I was painting about happiness and bliss. I had to leave out a lot of things that one expects to see in a painting. Happiness and bliss are very simple states of mind I guess. I have not repeated any of my drawings as paintings.

'To myself and to some others there is a lot of difference between one work and another - difference in meaning. There are many different happinesses and blisses. "Morning" a wonderful dawn, soft, and fresh - before daily care takes hold. It is about how we feel. Some titles are more obscure. "Tree" for instance means an exceptionally innocent (innocent of knowledge and action) state of mind. And "Desert" is a very arid, that is unsentimental, state of mind.'

Published in:
Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, p.488, reproduced p.488