Knox Martin
Encyclopedia
Knox Martin is an American painter
, sculptor and muralist.
Born in 1923 in Barranquilla
, Colombia
, he studied at the Art Students League of New York
from 1946 till 1950. He is one of the leading members of New York School
- a group of artists and writers. He lives and works in New York City.
"Art is at its cutting edge out of a specific lineage - the creation of reality. The subject matter of what I do, is creation." - Knox Martin (1999).
in Panama
in 1921. Knox Martin Sr., painter, poet, early test pilot, was the first man to fly over the Andes
mountains. Six years after his marriage Martin Sr. was fatally injured in an automobile accident in Watertown, New York.
His widow Isabel relocated with her three young sons from Salem, Virginia
to New York City
.
placed a painting of his in the 1954 Annual at the Stable Gallery
. Charles Egan of the Charles Egan Gallery
saw Martin's painting at the Stable Gallery and asked Martin to show his work in a one-man show for the tenth anniversary of the Egan Gallery.
and symbols that allude to nature
and, in particular, to the female form. Flatly and freely painted in brilliant colors, his works have often been executed on a grand scale, as in the outdoor wall painting
, Woman with bicycle
, at West Houston and MacDougal Streets in Manhattan
. He mostly creates painting, sculpture and wall paintings using media such as acrylic
, collage
, fresco
, ink
drawing (Pen and Ink), Mixed-Media/Multi-Media and oil
.
One of his wall paintings in New York City is the twelve-story mural Venus
. It is located on the south side of Bayview Correctional Facility
at 19th Street and the West Side Highway.
, Museum of Modern Art
, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
, Art Students League of New York
, Brooklyn Museum of Art, National Academy of Design
, National Arts Club
, New York University
, Albright-Knox Art Gallery
, New York State Museum
, Montclair Art Museum
, Art Institute of Chicago
, Baltimore Museum of Art
, Berkeley Art Museum, Boca Raton Museum of Art
, Corcoran Gallery of Art
, Denver Art Museum
, Heckscher Museum of Art
, Hofstra University Museum, Indianapolis Museum of Art
, Ithaca Museum, Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, Lowe Art Museum
, Oklahoma City Museum of Art
, Portland Art Museum
, Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, Springfield Art Museum, Toledo Museum of Art
, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Wellesley College, William Benton Museum of Art, Israel Museum
, Ludwig Museum in Budapest, and the Bibliothèque Nationale.
In 2002 Knox Martin was named to the National Academy of Design
.
Knox Martin is represented by Woodward Gallery
in New York City. In the fall of 2010 (September 15-November 13) he had a one man show of his Black and White Paintings.
. He taught at Yale Graduate School of Art, first as visiting critic in art, and then as Professor
of Art. He also taught at New York University
, the University of Minnesota
, and the International School of Art in Umbria, Italy.
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, sculptor and muralist.
Born in 1923 in Barranquilla
Barranquilla
Barranquilla is an industrial port city and municipality located in northern Colombia, near the Caribbean Sea. The capital of the Atlántico Department, it is the largest industrial city and port in the Colombian Caribbean region with a population of 1,148,506 as of 2005, which makes it Colombia's...
, Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
, he studied at the Art Students League of New York
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
from 1946 till 1950. He is one of the leading members of New York School
New York School
The New York School was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s, 1960s in New York City...
- a group of artists and writers. He lives and works in New York City.
"Art is at its cutting edge out of a specific lineage - the creation of reality. The subject matter of what I do, is creation." - Knox Martin (1999).
Early life
Knox Martin is the oldest son of Lieut. William Knox Martin, a Virginia-born early aviation pioneer and flyer, and his wife Isabel Vieco, who were married in the Canal ZoneCanal Zone
Canal Zone may refer to:* Panama Canal Zone, the former United States territory* Suez Canal Zone, the informal zone around the Suez Canal in Egypt...
in Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
in 1921. Knox Martin Sr., painter, poet, early test pilot, was the first man to fly over the Andes
Andes
The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...
mountains. Six years after his marriage Martin Sr. was fatally injured in an automobile accident in Watertown, New York.
His widow Isabel relocated with her three young sons from Salem, Virginia
Salem, Virginia
Salem is an independent city in Virginia, USA, bordered by the city of Roanoke to the east but otherwise adjacent to Roanoke County. It is part of the Roanoke Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 24,802 according to 2010 U.S. Census...
to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
Early career
After serving in World War II, Knox Martin attended the Art Students League of New York on the G.I. Bill from 1946-1950. His friend Franz KlineFranz Kline
Franz Jozef Kline was an American painter mainly associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement centered around New York in the 1940s and 1950s. He was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and attended Girard College, an academy in Philadelphia for fatherless boys...
placed a painting of his in the 1954 Annual at the Stable Gallery
Stable Gallery
The Stable Gallery, originally located on West 58th Street in New York, was founded in 1953 by Eleanor Ward. The Stable Gallery hosted early solo New York exhibitions for artists including Robert Indiana and Andy Warhol.-History:...
. Charles Egan of the Charles Egan Gallery
Charles Egan Gallery
The Charles Egan Gallery opened at 63 East 57th Street in about 1945, when Charles Egan was in his mid-30's. Egan's artists helped him fix up the gallery: "Isamu Noguchi did the lighting... Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline painted the walls."...
saw Martin's painting at the Stable Gallery and asked Martin to show his work in a one-man show for the tenth anniversary of the Egan Gallery.
Work
Knox Martin is best known for his repertory of signsSigns
Signs is the plural of sign. See sign .Signs may also refer to:*Signs , a 2002 film by M. Night Shyamalan*Signs , a journal of women's studies...
and symbols that allude to nature
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
and, in particular, to the female form. Flatly and freely painted in brilliant colors, his works have often been executed on a grand scale, as in the outdoor wall painting
Mural
A mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface. A particularly distinguishing characteristic of mural painting is that the architectural elements of the given space are harmoniously incorporated into the picture.-History:Murals of...
, Woman with bicycle
Woman with bicycle
Woman with Bicycle is a six-story wall painting created by the American painter, sculptor and muralist Knox Martin in 1979 under the sponsorship of the Public Art Fund. A well-known New York art landmark, Woman with Bicycle was located at Houston and MacDougal Streets in Manhattan...
, at West Houston and MacDougal Streets in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
. He mostly creates painting, sculpture and wall paintings using media such as acrylic
Acrylic paint
Acrylic paint is fast drying paint containing pigment suspension in acrylic polymer emulsion. Acrylic paints can be diluted with water, but become water-resistant when dry...
, collage
Collage
A collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....
, fresco
Fresco
Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
, ink
Ink
Ink is a liquid or paste that contains pigments and/or dyes and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing and/or writing with a pen, brush, or quill...
drawing (Pen and Ink), Mixed-Media/Multi-Media and oil
Oil
An oil is any substance that is liquid at ambient temperatures and does not mix with water but may mix with other oils and organic solvents. This general definition includes vegetable oils, volatile essential oils, petrochemical oils, and synthetic oils....
.
Venus (mural)
Venus is a twelve-story-high mural painting by Knox Martin on the south side of Bayview Correctional Facility at 19th Street and 11th Avenue in New York City.Venus was commissioned by Doris Freedman of CityWalls in 1970...
. It is located on the south side of Bayview Correctional Facility
Bayview Correctional Facility
Bayview Correctional Facility is a medium-security women's prison located at the corner of West 20th Street and 11th Avenue in Manhattan, directly across the street from the Chelsea Piers sports complex. It is highly unusual to find a state penitentiary in the middle of a major city. Bayview...
at 19th Street and the West Side Highway.
"Traditionally the goddess of love and fertility, Venus represents woman, erotic and supple, but it also conveys Knox Martin's love affair with New York. Venus is his love poem to the city where he has always lived, a place that is part of his being. The feminine, curvilinear shapes of the image are in direct contrast with the straight forms that intersect the composition. The overwhelming size of this enormous mural only intensifies the experience of female shapes, the linear aspects of the painted composition, and of the surrounding architecture. In an era when art was reaching out to the masses with pop culture, this huge mural was Knox Martin's way of touching a public that would never venture into an art gallery."
Collections
Knox Martin's work is included in the collections of Whitney Museum of American ArtWhitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
, Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft and is part of the...
, Art Students League of New York
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
, Brooklyn Museum of Art, National Academy of Design
National Academy of Design
The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...
, National Arts Club
National Arts Club
The National Arts Club is a private club in Gramercy Park, New York City, New York, USA. It was founded in 1898 to "stimulate, foster, and promote public interest in the arts and to educate the American people in the fine arts". Since 1906 the organization has occupied the Samuel J...
, New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Albright-Knox Art Gallery
The Albright-Knox Art Gallery is an art museum located in Delaware Park in Buffalo, New York. The gallery is a major showplace for modern art and contemporary art. It is located directly across the street from Buffalo State College.-History:...
, New York State Museum
New York State Museum
The New York State Museum is a research-backed institution in Albany, New York, United States. It is located on Madison Avenue, attached to the south side of the Empire State Plaza, facing onto the plaza and towards the New York State Capitol...
, Montclair Art Museum
Montclair Art Museum
The Montclair Art Museum is located in Montclair, in Essex County, New Jersey, United States.-Collection:The Montclair Art Museum is one of the few museums in the United States devoted to American art and Native American art forms. The collection consists of more than 12,000 works...
, Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
, Baltimore Museum of Art
Baltimore Museum of Art
The Baltimore Museum of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, was founded in 1914. Built in the Roman Temple style, the Museum is home to an internationally renowned collection of 19th-century, modern, and contemporary art. Founded in 1914 with a single painting, the BMA today has 90,000 works...
, Berkeley Art Museum, Boca Raton Museum of Art
Boca Raton Museum of Art
The Boca Raton Museum of Art is located at 501 Plaza Real, Boca Raton, Florida in Mizner Park. It houses works of art by a number of the great masters.-About:...
, Corcoran Gallery of Art
Corcoran Gallery of Art
The Corcoran Gallery of Art is the largest privately supported cultural institution in Washington, DC. The museum's main focus is American art. The permanent collection includes works by Rembrandt, Eugène Delacroix, Edgar Degas, Thomas Gainsborough, John Singer Sargent, Claude Monet, Pablo...
, Denver Art Museum
Denver Art Museum
The Denver Art Museum is an art museum in Denver, Colorado located in Denver's Civic Center.It is known for its collection of American Indian art,and has a comprehensive collection numbering more than 68,000 works from across the world....
, Heckscher Museum of Art
Heckscher Museum of Art
The Heckscher Museum of Art is named after its benefactor, August Heckscher, who in 1920 donated 185 works of art to be housed in a new Beaux-Arts building located in Heckscher Park, in Huntington, New York...
, Hofstra University Museum, Indianapolis Museum of Art
Indianapolis Museum of Art
The Indianapolis Museum of Art is an encyclopedic art museum located in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. The museum, which underwent a $74 million expansion in 2005, is located on a campus on the near northwest area outside downtown Indianapolis, northwest of Crown Hill Cemetery.The...
, Ithaca Museum, Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, Lowe Art Museum
Lowe Art Museum
The Lowe Art Museum is an art museum located in Coral Gables, Florida, a Miami suburb in Miami-Dade County. The museum is run and operated by the University of Miami and opened in 1950. The museum has an extensive collection of art with permanent collections in Greco-Roman antiquities, Renaissance,...
, Oklahoma City Museum of Art
Oklahoma City Museum of Art
The Oklahoma City Museum of Art is a museum located in the Donald W. Reynolds Visual Arts Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA. The museum features visiting exhibits; original selections from its own collection; a theater showing a variety of foreign, independent, and classic films each week;...
, Portland Art Museum
Portland Art Museum
The Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon, United States, was founded in 1892, making it the oldest art museum on the West Coast and seventh oldest in the United States. Upon completion of the most recent renovations, the Portland Art Museum became one of the twenty-five largest art museums in...
, Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, Springfield Art Museum, Toledo Museum of Art
Toledo Museum of Art
The Toledo Museum of Art is an internationally known art museum located in the Old West End neighborhood of Toledo, Ohio, United States. The museum was founded by Toledo glassmaker Edward Drummond Libbey in 1901, and moved to its present location, a Greek revival building designed by Edward B....
, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Wellesley College, William Benton Museum of Art, Israel Museum
Israel Museum
The Israel Museum, Jerusalem was founded in 1965 as Israel's national museum. It is situated on a hill in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem, near the Bible Lands Museum, the Knesset, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....
, Ludwig Museum in Budapest, and the Bibliothèque Nationale.
In 2002 Knox Martin was named to the National Academy of Design
National Academy of Design
The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...
.
Knox Martin is represented by Woodward Gallery
Woodward Gallery
The Woodward Gallery is a contemporary fine art gallery that opened in April 1994 under the incorporation G.O.L.A, Inc. . The inaugural exhibition was held in Times Square at the Roundabout Theatre Company. Their gallery space started in New York City at 419 Lafayette Street and moved to SoHo at...
in New York City. In the fall of 2010 (September 15-November 13) he had a one man show of his Black and White Paintings.
Teaching
Knox Martin gives Master Classes at the Art Students League of New YorkArt Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
. He taught at Yale Graduate School of Art, first as visiting critic in art, and then as Professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of Art. He also taught at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
, and the International School of Art in Umbria, Italy.
Books
- Marika Herskovic, New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists, (New York School Press, 2000.) ISBN 0-9677994-0-6
- Irving SandlerIrving SandlerIrving Sandler is an American art critic and educator. He has provided numerous first hand accounts of American art, particularly around the abstract expressionist circles of the 1950s, where he managed the Downtown Tanager Gallery and co-ordinated the New York artists' 'Club' from 1955 to its...
, From Avant-Garde to Pluralism: An On-The-Spot History, (Hard Press Editions, 2006.)ISBN 1889097683
External links
- Knox Martin Website
- Woodward Gallery
- artnet.com
- artslant.com
- Knox Martin - The Whaling Wall
- Knox Martin Greenpeace Blog
- YouTube: Knox Martin- Women:Black and White Paintings at Woodward Gallery
- The Art Students League of New York
- Janos Gat Gallery
- The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Inc.
- Smithsonian Archives of American Art