Woman with Flowers, 2010, Acrylic on linen, 18 x 22 inches
Woman with Red Shoes, 2010, Acrylic on linen, 75.5 x 62 inches
Young Woman, 2010, Acrylic on linen, 18 x 22 inches
Bathsheba, 2010, Acrylic on linen, 18 x 22 inches
Woman with Flowers, 2010, Acrylic on linen, 18 x 22 inches
Grapes, Lemons and Tomatoes, 2010, Acrylic on linen, 58 x 44.75 inches
Woman and a Plant, 2010, Acrylic on linen, 18 x 22 inches
Woman Looking, 2010, Acrylic on linen, 18 x 22 inches
Mary Ellen, 2010, Acrylic on linen, 18 x 22 inches
Knox Martin
Woman: Black and White Paintings
September 15 – November 13, 2010
For nearly 60 years, Knox Martin has produced a singular visual language with roots in both the Old Masters and that great upheaval in mid-20th-century American art known as Abstract Expressionism. Now 87, he continues to paint with undiminished vigor, as the more than thirty paintings in this show—mainly from 2010—attest.
Martin came of age as an artist in the 1950s, alongside some of the leading lights of that era, such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. But he has at intervals in his career wrestled with the ghosts of the Western tradition, most recently in a series of unframed drawings called “Caprichos†in honor of the fever-dream etchings of Goya. The paintings in this show also hint at other influences, ranging from Titian to Matisse, but ultimately Martin’s voice remains private, euphoric, and a tad inscrutable.
His fondness for the female body is everywhere apparent, from the high-heeled shoes to the outlines of a comely derriere to the repeated circular shapes that are sometimes breasts and other times possibly a pair of looking eyes. The works invite comparison with de Kooning’s “Woman†series, but Martin has a more playful touch; his attitude is one of admiration and light-hearted lust rather than ferocious ambivalence. At points in his career—such as murals he has done for Neiman Marcus and outdoor spaces in New York—Martin edges away from allusiveness to extreme metaphor, but he always seems to come back (at least in easel-sized efforts) to a more easily seen iconography that is about an amorous and playful sexuality.
He is also comfortable with both large and small formats, miraculously adjusting the content to suit the size. The largest paintings in the show, Grapes, Lemons and Tomatoes and Woman with Red Shoes “breathe†with bold passages of white space. The smaller works are often busier, more claustrophobic, sometimes threatening to burst out of their confines, as though the chaotic bustle were too overwhelming to be contained.
It’s clear that Knox Martin is very much a painter’s painter: the viewer can sense his repeated emendations to the canvases, the numerous pentimenti that show him backtracking to paint and repaint passages until he gets the surface looking the way he wants it to. But he also brings to his work a collage sensibility: sections look as though they could be made of cut paper and pasted to the canvas. This balancing act may be part of what contributes to the liveliness of his vision, or, as the critic Arthur Danto remarked 12 years ago, “The brilliance of [his] works lies in the drama of overlapping forms, in playing a painting’s depth against its surface.â€
What may be most thrilling about these paintings, however, is their freshness. Martin’s style has its roots in a movement that goes back six decades, but he nonetheless makes the viewer feel part of an ongoing tradition—one that, in the right hands, has a lot of life left to it. Knox Martin’s paintings have a vividness and timelessness that is perhaps the most compelling characteristic of all great art.
Recent features on Knox Martin – Woman: Black and White Paintings:
“Paintings of Women by the Handful,” in L Magazine by Benjamin Sutton
“Knox Martin: Black and White Paintings,” in City Arts by Valerie Gladstone
THE ALPHA SEER’S COMMENT:
FINALLY SOMEONE IN NEW YORK CITY
GETS TO HAVE A GLIMPSE OF THE GREAT
KNOX MARTIN!!!!
KNOX MUST HAVE BEEN INVISIBLE ALL THESE YEARS AND MONTHS,….
WHAT IS TAKING PEOPLE SO LONG TO RECOGNIZE A TOP GENIUS?
ANSWER: WHEN ONE WALKS DIRECTLY UNDER THE HIMALAYA, ONE CANNOT IMMEDIATELY SEE ITS PEAKS AT ALL,–AND THAT IS WHY YOU CANNOT READILY SEE AN ARTISTIC GENIUS WITHOUT THE DISTANCE OF TIME AND ASSESSMENTS.
LOOK ON, FRIENDS,…TO FIND OUT WHY KNOX IS SO GREAT. SIMPLY ASK YOURSELF WHY THE OTHER ITEMS ON VILLAGE VOICE ARE JUST PLAIN SILLY SH-TS ,–THAT WHICH HAS COME OF THE MIND,– AND TOTALLY WITHOUT CREATIVEÂ MERITS. CERTAIN UNHINGED INVENTIVENESS MAY HAVE BEEN CHAMPIONED HERE IN THE NAME OF FREEDOM, BUT THEY MUST RELY SO UTTERLY ON MEANINGS!
WHERE IS POETRY?
WITHOUT POETRY, WHERE IS BEAUTY?
WITHOUT BEAUTY, WHERE IS ART?
WHO ARE STILL LOOKING FOR MEANING HERE IN A PAINTING, LIKE A BUNCH OF SILLY SCHOOL KIDS?
“ALL MEANINGS ORIGINATE FROM THE REGURGITATION OF MEMORY, AND MEMORY IS DEAD!”
THUS DECLARED J. KRISHNAMURTI,–ONE OF THE GREATEST MASTERS OF MEDITATIONS OF OUR TIME.
AND YOU CANNOT HAVE THE CONCEPTUAL AND ART AT THE SAME TIME, AS IT IS ANTI-INTUITIVE,–A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS.
WHAT IS ANTI-INTUITIVE? LET’S SAY IF YOU CAN REALLY ENJOY A MATISSE, (AS DISTINGUISHED FROM THOSE WHO PRETEND THEY CAN ENJOY A MATISSE…,) AND PROVIDED THAT YOU ARE NOT TOTALLY INERT TO THE POETIC PERSUASION THAT A MATISSE CAN ACT ON YOU, MASSAGING EVERY FIBER OF YOUR SOUL,– THEN YOUR DISCERNMENT OF THAT WHICH IS ANTI- MATISSE, OR ANTI-INTUITION,– SHOULD BE IMMEDIATELY EVIDENT.
DON’T GET ME WRONG HERE! I AM HARDLY AGAINST SUCH REGURGITATION AT ALL! WHY WOULD I, INDEED?
STRANGELY, FAKE STUFFS HAVE, MORE OFTEN THAN NOT, FOUND THEMSELVES REFLECTING ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE THE REAL THING, JUST AS AN IMPOSTOR ACTUALLY POINTS TO THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TRUE SEER.
THE ALPHA SEER