Lot 157: MARY MARTIN 1907-1969

DIAGONAL ON BLACK

53.5 by 53.5cm.; 21 by 21in.

signed and dated 63 on the reverse

stainless steel and black-painted wood on black formica on wooden support

EXHIBITED

London, Molton & Lords Gallery, Mary Martin, Februrary 1964, no.17, illustrated on the cover of the exhibition catalogue;
London, Tate Gallery, Mary Martin, 3rd October - 25th November 1984, no.25, p.55, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue.

LITERATURE

Alastair Grieve, Constructed Art in England After the Second World War: A Neglected Avant-Garde, Yale University Press, New Haven & London 2005, no.272, illustrated, p.162

NOTE

The constructions such as I seek to make are based on implications of movement and infinity by positive and negative means (The artist, statement in Structure, Amsterdam, 1962).

Martin's first relief was Columbarium (Estate of the Artist), made in 1951, and throughout the decade she produced a coherent body of works that used systems of proportional growth, such as the Fibonacci series, as their underlying basis. In the early 1960s, she created a number of works that use the basic unit of the cube as their prime element, and in the present relief, the cube is divided diagonally along the hypotenuse, this side being faced with stainless steel to give a reflective surface.

By creating a sequence of progressive permutations on this consistent base form, the relief develops both a structural harmony, but by the incorporation of the reflections on the steel into the design, the work combines this mathematical synchronization with a more random emphasis of light and shadow that depends entirely on the ambient light conditions.