Mary Adela Martin (née Balmford) (1907–1969) was a British artist best known for geometric abstract painting and for her collaborations with her husband Kenneth Martin.

Biography

Martin née Balmford was born on 16 November 1907 in

Folkestone Folkestone ( ) is a port town on the English Channel, in Kent, south-east England. The town lies on the southern edge of the North Downs at a valley between two cliffs. It was an important harbour and shipping port for most of the 19th and 20t ...

, United Kingdom. She studied at Goldsmiths' College, London from 1925 to 1929 and at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It ...

from 1929 to 1932 where she met and married Kenneth Martin in 1930. She exhibited at the A.I.A. from 1934, mainly as a still-life and landscape painter, using her maiden name. During the war Mary taught drawing, design and weaving at Chelmsford School of Art from 1941 to 1944 but gave this up when she became pregnant with her first child. Martin moved towards pure abstraction in the late 1940s painting her first abstract picture in 1950, made her first reliefs in 1951 and her first free-standing construction in 1956. Martin and her husband collaborated on the ''Environment'' section of the seminal exhibition '' This Is Tomorrow''. Martin participated in group exhibitions of constructed art in England and abroad, notably Konkrete Kunst, Zürich 1960, and Experiment in Constructie,

Stedelijk Museum The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (; Municipal Museum Amsterdam), colloquially known as the Stedelijk, is a museum for modern art, contemporary art, and design located in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

, 1962. Martin designed a screen for the

Musgrave Park Hospital Musgrave Park Hospital is a specialist hospital in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It specialises in orthopaedics, rheumatology, sports medicine and rehabilitation of patients of all ages. These specialties are spread out across a large site in the ...

in Belfast (1957), reliefs for the Orient Line's S.S. Oriana (1960) and a wall construction for the

University of Stirling The University of Stirling (, gd, Oilthigh Shruighlea (abbreviated as Stir or Shruiglea, in post-nominals) is a public university in Stirling, Scotland, founded by royal charter in 1967. It is located in the Central Belt of Scotland, built ...

. Martin was the joint winner of the 1969

John Moores Painting Prize The John Moores Painting Prize is a biennial award to the best contemporary painting, submission is open to the public. The prize is named for Sir John Moores, noted philanthropist, who established the award in 1957. The winning work and short-li ...

along with Richard Hamilton. She was the first woman to receive that prize. Martin died on 9 October 1969 in London. In 1984 the

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

held retrospective of her work. In 2007 the

Camden Arts Centre Camden Art Centre (formerly known as Hampstead Arts Centre until 1967 and Camden Arts Centre until 2020) is a contemporary art gallery in the London Borough of Camden, England that hosts temporary exhibitions and educational outreach projects. T ...

held an exhibition of Mary and Kenneth Martin's work.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Martin, Mary 1907 births 1969 deaths 20th-century British sculptors 20th-century English women artists Alumni of the Royal College of Art Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London English women sculptors People from Folkestone