Floor 4: Agnes Martin (exiting Marden)
Overview
Gallery Wayfinding
You are in the Agnes Martin Gallery. Martin's intricate, square paintings in pale colors create a quiet and contemplative atmosphere in this space. The gallery entrance renders some of Martin's paintings—especially Night Sea, whose saturated blue color stands out among the other paintings-—viewable from the Brice Marden gallery.
You've entered from the middle of the back wall of this small octagon-shaped (like a stop sign) gallery, facing the far, front wall. The gallery has seven 2-D artworks. In the center of the room is round seating.
The exit for the room is the same as the entrance, which puts you in the Brice Marden Gallery. To get to the next QR code for the Dan Flavin Gallery, walk toward the far front wall and exit left corner of the gallery. Or, exit to the Richard Serra Gallery immediately to your left. The QR code is at the threshold on the right wall, marked with a perpendicular tactile floor strip.
Label
"It is not what is seen. It is what is known forever in the mind."
—Agnes Martin
Agnes Martin
Born 1912, Macklin, Canada; died 2004, Taos, New Mexico
In the early 1960s, Agnes Martin arrived at the format that would occupy her for the next four decades: square canvases with gridded—and later striped—surfaces. Within these self-imposed parameters, she achieved an astonishing variety of tones, textures, and optical effects. Painstakingly handmade, her works combine rigid geometry and repetition with subtle irregularities that testify to the artist’s touch. They invite and reward prolonged contemplation. Influenced by Taoism and Zen Buddhism, Martin sought to give visual form to the boundless and universal. She once compared painting to "going into a field of vision as you would cross an empty beach to look at the ocean."
Objects
7 objects in the order you'll encounter them from this entrance. Select an object to view details.
Artwork Label Text
1995
Acrylic paint and graphite on linen
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1996
Visual Description
A****roughly square linen painting—about the height of a short adult and as wide as their outstretched arms—in acrylic and graphite presents a field of evenly spaced horizontal bands that alternate between pale peach, a powdery blue, and white, all of which are separated by fine lines of pencil. The peach and powder blue bands are equally thick and noticeably wider than the white bands, which are much narrower.
The bands run uninterrupted from left edge to right edge, stacking from top to bottom. The peach and powder blue bands have a gently clouded, mottled surface. Variations in opacity and tone create a washed effect, with occasional darker smudges and lighter blooms. Thin, faint graphite lines trace the boundaries between the bands, but come to a stop before the outer edges of the canvas. The overall palette is pastel, with both the powder blue and warm peach bands kept low in saturation.
The painting is in a gray metal frame. A low museum stanchion has been placed on the floor in front of this piece and all the pieces in the Agnes Martin gallery.
Artwork Label Text
1988
Acrylic paint and graphite on linen
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1989
Visual Description
A large square painting—about the height of a tall adult and as wide as their outstretched arms— in acrylic paint and graphite on linen presents a pattern of gray parallel horizontal lines on a pale, off-white ground.
The thin gray graphite lines run continuously across the composition, but come to a stop before the edge at either side. They also show slight dips and other imperfections. They are organized into nine repeating, vertically stacked sections. Within each section, twelve tightly arranged parallel lines—vaguely suggestive of ruled paper or a musical staff—are separated by a wider band of off-white ground. The sections are set apart from one another by eight narrow stripes of a much lighter white paint, which are likewise bordered by graphite lines. The repetition of narrow white stripes, wide off-white stripes, and tight clusters of lines establishes a uniform rhythm and order in the painting.
The painting sits within a gray metal frame. A low museum stanchion has been placed on the floor in front of this piece and all the pieces in the Agnes Martin gallery.
Artwork Label Text
1981
Acrylic paint, colored pencil, and gesso on linen
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 2000
Visual Description
A large, nearly six-foot-square painting on linen—about the height of a tall adult and as wide as their outstretched arms—presents a pale grid of thin, horizontal stripes rendered in acrylic paint, colored pencil, and gesso. The surface is organized into many evenly spaced, parallel bands running left to right, alternating between extremely light pastel tones of powder blue, blush pink, and warm beige-peach. They are so faint they sometimes read as tinted against an off-white ground. At the top, center, and bottom of the canvas are groupings of four off-white stripes that create what appear from a distance to be thicker areas of off-white.
The color bands are separated by very fine blue pencil lines. These lines, together with the repeating and alternating color bands, create a measured, rhythmic structure. The palette has subtle variations in density. Some bands appear slightly more saturated or textured, and occasional slightly darker, smudgy passages suggest gentle layering or rubbing within the stripes. Upon close examination, the colored pencil lines are not uniformly straight but have various dips and imperfections, revealing their handmade process.
The painting is in a gray metal frame. A low museum stanchion has been placed on the floor in front of this piece and all the pieces in the Agnes Martin gallery.
Artwork Label Text
1963
Crayon, gold leaf, and oil on linen
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1991
Visual Description
A large square work on linen—about the height of a tall adult and as wide as their outstretched arms—presents a regular grid of small horizontal rectangles of blue separated by very fine, incised lines, with a narrow border of unpainted canvas around the edges.
The grid is composed of evenly spaced horizontal and vertical rulings that create many small rectangles. Subtle variations in the blue—with an underpainting of a deeper ultramarine blue slightly visible under the more muted turquoise top layer—give the surface a sense of depth. Some of the scored grid lines contain very thin horizontal and vertical threads of gold leaf that are perceptible from certain angles in the light. There is also evidence of yellow crayon.
The grid is not perfectly uniform. There are subtle dips in the lines and variations in the thickness of the rectangles that testify to the artist’s hand. The linen’s border is a thin perimeter with slight irregularities and soft discolorations at the corners and along the edges.
The painting is in gray metal frame. A low museum stanchion has been placed on the floor in front of this piece and all the pieces in the Agnes Martin gallery.
Artwork Label Text
1965
Acrylic paint and graphite on linen
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 2000
Visual Description
A large, nearly square work—about the height of a tall adult and as wide as their outstretched arms—in acrylic paint and graphite on linen presents an off-white field organized into a uniform grid of fine, soft graphite lines.
The lines have been drawn with two different degrees of pressure. A darker series of equally spaced vertical and horizontal lines cross one another to produce a grid with uniform square divisions. In addition to this, a series of lighter vertical lines run at closer intervals between the dark vertical lines. These finer lines subdivide the squares into narrow vertical rectangles, creating a second level of order to the matrix. Three lines segment each square into four rectangles.
The overall tone stays within soft whites and warm grays with slight variations. The edges remain clean and square, and the grid continues uninterrupted to the margins. While precisely drawn with a straight edge, the lines nevertheless reveal subtle variations and imperfections.
The painting is in a gray metal frame. A low museum stanchion has been placed on the floor in front of this piece and all the pieces in the Agnes Martin gallery.
Artwork Label Text
1977
Gesso, graphite, and ink on linen
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 2007
Visual Description
A nearly square field of gesso, graphite, and ink on linen—about the height of a tall adult and as wide as their outstretched arms— presents an extremely subtle, minimalist grid that covers the entire surface. The linen is warm off-white with faint mottling and a delicate weave, giving the surface a powdery, matte texture. Parallel pairs of thin, soft graphite lines run vertically and horizontally, creating a series of repeated vertical rectangular units. There are thirty-nine rectangles altogether in four horizontal rows and nine columns. The lines reveal small variations in pressure and alignment, with tiny shifts in spacing, slightly darker intersections, and occasional soft smudges.
The painting is in a gray metal frame. A low museum stanchion has been placed on the floor in front of this piece and all the pieces in the Agnes Martin gallery.
Artwork Label Text
1957
Oil on linen
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 2007
Visual Description
A square oil-on-linen painting slightly larger than an average wall poster presents a geometric abstraction of layered and translucent rectangular fields within a broad, muted blue-gray border. The border forms an even frame around the central composition, slightly darker and cooler than the interior, with faint tonal variation.
Inside this frame, there are four large, pale yellow rectangles: two across the top and two across the bottom. Their edges are gently softened rather than sharply drawn. A lighter, nearly white vertical band runs down the center, separating the left and right halves. A horizontal division across the middle further splits the interior into upper and lower sections, with the lower area appearing brighter and more uniform. The top-left and top-right rectangles are slightly deeper in tone than the bottom rectangles. Surface texture and speckling also show through the thin paint layers.
This painting is in a thin wood frame. A low museum stanchion has been placed on the floor in front of this piece and all the pieces in the Agnes Martin gallery.