Knox Martin (February 12, 1923 – May 15, 2022) was an American painter, sculptor, and muralist. Born in

Barranquilla Barranquilla () is the capital district of the Atlántico department in Colombia. It is located near the Caribbean Sea and is the largest city and third port in the Caribbean region of Colombia, Caribbean coast region; as of 2018, it had a popul ...

, Colombia, he studied at the

Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school in the American Fine Arts Society in Manhattan, New York City. The Arts Students League is known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may study f ...

from 1946 until 1950. He was one of the leading members of the New York School of artists and writers. He lived and worked in New York City.

Early life

Knox Martin was the oldest son of Lieutenant William Knox Martin, a

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

-born early aviation pioneer and flyer, and his wife Isabel Vieco, who were married in the Canal Zone in

Panama Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and ...

in 1921. Knox Martin Sr., a painter, poet, and early test pilot, was the first man to fly over the

Andes The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...

mountains. Six years after his marriage, Martin Sr. was fatally injured in an automobile accident in

Watertown, New York Watertown is a city in and the county seat of Jefferson County, New York, United States. It is approximately south of the Thousand Islands, along the Black River, about east of where it flows into Lake Ontario. The city is bordered by the t ...

. His widow Isabel relocated with her three young sons from

Salem, Virginia Salem is an independent city in the U.S. commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 25,346. It is the county seat of Roanoke County, although the two are separate jurisdictions. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combine ...

, to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

Early career

After serving in the

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and Admiralty law, law enforcement military branch, service branch of the armed forces of the United States. It is one of the country's eight Uniformed services ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Martin attended the Art Students League of New York on the

G.I. Bill The G.I. Bill, formally the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I. (military), G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in ...

from 1946 to 1950, where he studied with

Harry Sternberg Harry Sternberg (1904–2001), was an American Painting, painter, printmaking, printmaker and educator. He taught at the Art Students League of New York, from 1933 to c. 1966. Biography Childhood, family life, and education Sternberg's parents h ...

, Vaclav Vytlacil,

Will Barnet Will Barnet (May 25, 1911November 13, 2012) was an American visual artist and teacher, known for his paintings, watercolors, drawings, and prints depicting the human figure and animals, both in casual scenes of daily life and in transcendent d ...

, and Morris Kantor. In 1954, Martin's friend Franz Kline placed a painting of his in the

Stable Gallery The Stable Gallery, originally located on West 58th Street in New York City, was founded in 1953 by Eleanor Ward. The Stable Gallery hosted early solo New York exhibitions for artists including Marisol Escobar, Robert Indiana and Andy Warhol. His ...

Annual. Charles Egan of the Charles Egan Gallery saw Martin's painting at the Stable Gallery and asked him to show his work in a one-man show for the tenth anniversary of the Egan Gallery.

Work

Martin is best known for his repertory of

sign A sign is an object, quality, event, or entity whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else. A natural sign bears a causal relation to its object—for instance, thunder is a sign of storm, or me ...

s and

symbols A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise different concep ...

that allude to nature and, in particular, to the female form. Flatly and freely painted in brilliant colors, his works were often executed on a grand scale, as in , the outdoor

wall painting A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spanish ...

, '' Woman with Bicycle'', at West Houston and

MacDougal Street MacDougal Street is a one-way street in the Greenwich Village Greenwich Village, or simply the Village, is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street (Manhattan), 14th Street to the nort ...

s in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

. He mostly created painting, sculpture and wall paintings using media such as acrylic,

collage Collage (, from the , "to glue" or "to stick together") is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assembly of different forms, thus creating a new whole. (Compare with pasti ...

fresco Fresco ( or frescoes) is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the painting become ...

ink Ink is a gel, sol, or solution that contains at least one colorant, such as a dye or pigment, and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing or writing with a pen, brush, reed pen, or quill. ...

drawing (pen and ink), mixed media/multimedia, and

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) and lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturate ...

. One of his wall paintings in New York City is the twelve-story mural ''

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...

''. Commissioned in 1970 by Doris Freedman of CityWalls (later the Public Art Fund), Venus is located on the south side of Bayview Correctional Facility at 19th Street and the

West Side Highway The Joe DiMaggio Highway, commonly called the West Side Highway and formerly the Miller Highway, is a mostly surface section of New York State Route 9A (NY 9A), running from 72nd Street (Manhattan), West 72nd Street along the Hudso ...

"Traditionally the goddess of love and fertility, Venus represents woman, erotic and supple, but it also conveys 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 Martin's way of touching a public that would never venture into an art gallery."

Collections

Martin's work is included in the collections of

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was designed ...

Brooklyn Museum of Art The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Frederick Styles Agate, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, an ...

National Arts Club The National Arts Club is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and members club on Gramercy Park, Manhattan, New York City. It was founded in 1898 by Charles DeKay, an art and literary critic of the ''New York Times'', to "stimulate, foster, and promote publi ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

Addison Gallery of American Art Addison may refer to: Places Canada * Addison, Ontario, a community United States * Addison, Alabama, a town * Addison, Illinois, a village * Addison, Kentucky, an unincorporated community * Addison, Maine, a town * Addison, Michigan, a vil ...

Albright-Knox Art Gallery The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum located adjacent to Delaware Park, Buffalo, New York, United States. The museum shows modern art and contemporary art. It is directly opposite Buff ...

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...

Art Museum of Southeast Texas The Art Museum of Southeast Texas (AMSET) is an art museum in Beaumont, Texas, United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a fe ...

Baltimore Museum of Art The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of modern art, ...

Berkeley Art Museum The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA, formerly abbreviated as BAM/PFA) are a combined art museum, repertory movie theater, and film archive associated with the University of California, Berkeley. Lawrence Rinder was Director ...

Blanton Museum of Art The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art (often referred to as the Blanton or the BMA) at the University of Texas at Austin is one of the largest university art museums in the U.S. with 189,340 square feet devoted to temporary exhibitions, permanent co ...

Boca Raton Museum of Art Founded by artists, the Boca Raton Museum of Art was established in 1950 as the Art Guild of Boca Raton. The organization has grown to encompass an Art School, Guild, Store, and Museum with permanent collections of contemporary art, photography, ...

, Chrysler Museum of Art,

Corcoran Gallery of Art The Corcoran Gallery of Art is a former art museum in Washington, D.C., that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Founded in 1869 by philanthropist William Wilson Corco ...

Dallas Museum of Art The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the A ...

, Davis Museum at Wellesley College,

Denver Art Museum The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is an art museum located in the Civic Center of Denver, Colorado. With an encyclopedic collection of more than 70,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world, the DAM is one of the largest art museums betwe ...

, Hand Art Center,

Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art ("The Johnson Museum") is an art museum located on the northwest corner of the Arts Quad on the main campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Its collection includes two windows from Frank Llo ...

, Heckscher Museum of Art, Hofstra University Museum,

Indianapolis Museum of Art The Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) is an encyclopedic art museum located at Newfields, a campus that also houses Lilly House, The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park, the Garden at Newfields and more. It is located at the corner of No ...

, Ithaca Museum,

Lowe Art Museum Lowe Art Museum is the art museum of the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. The museum is located on the campus of the University of Miami and is accessible by Metrorail (Miami-Dade County), Miami Metrorail at University station (Miami- ...

George Washington University The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally-chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Originally named Columbian College, it was chartered in 1821 by ...

, Montclair Art Museum,

Minneapolis Institute of Arts The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the largest art museums in the United Stat ...

, Newark Museum, Oklahoma City Museum of Art,

Portland Art Museum The Portland Art Museum (PAM) is an art museum in downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. The Portland Art Museum has 240,000 square feet (22,000 m2), with more than 112,000 square feet (10,400 m2) of gallery space. The museum’s permanent c ...

, Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Reading Public Museum, Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, Springfield Art Museum,

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. The permanent collection of the museum spans more than 5,000 years of history with nearly 80,000 works from six continents. Follow ...

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. It houses a collection of more than 30,000 objects. With 45 galleries, it covers 280,000 square feet and is currently in th ...

, University of Kentucky Art Museum, University of Maine Museum of Art, Weatherspoon Art Museum, William Benton Museum of Art,

Israel Museum The Israel Museum (, ''Muze'on Yisrael'', ) is an Art museum, art and archaeology museum in Jerusalem. It was established in 1965 as Israel's largest and foremost cultural institution, and one of the world's leading Encyclopedic museum, encyclopa ...

, Ludwig Museum in Budapest, and the

Bibliothèque Nationale A library is a collection of books, and possibly other materials and media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or digital (soft copies) materials, and may be a p ...

Grants, Awards and Honors

Martin was the recipient of numerous grants, including two

Pollock-Krasner Foundation The Pollock-Krasner Foundation was established in 1985 for the purpose of providing funding to visual artists internationally to further their artistic practices. It was established at the bequest of Lee Krasner, who was an American abstract expr ...

Grants (2008 and 1988), Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Grant (1991), C.A.P.S. Grant (1978), an NEA Artist Fellowship (1973), and three Longview Fellowship purchase awards (1958 and 1957). In 2002, Martin was named to the

. Subsequently, Martin received painting awards from the

including the Desser Award for Painting (2005), the Kept Memorial Prize (2007), the Mary & Maxwell Desser Memorial Award (2009), and the J. Sanford Saltus Medal for Painting (2009). In 2012, Martin was awarded the Benjamin West Clinedinst Memorial Medal by the Artists' Fellowship, Inc. "for the achievement of exceptional artistic merit". In 2016, France conferred the insignia of

Chevalier of the Legion of Honor The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...

on Martin for his contribution in World War II to the liberation of France.

Teaching

Martin gave a master class at the

for over 45 years. Earlier he taught at Yale Graduate School of Art, first as visiting critic in art, invited by

Jack Tworkov Jack Tworkov (15 August 1900 – 4 September 1982) was an American abstract expressionist painter. Early life and education Yakov Tworkovsky, was born in Biała Podlaska on the border between Poland and the Russian Empire. His father was a t ...

, and then as

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

of Art. He also taught at

, the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

, and the International School of Painting, Drawing and Sculpture in Umbria, Italy.

Later work

September 15 to November 13, 2010, Martin had a one-man show of his Black and White Paintings at Woodward Gallery in New York City. October 6, 2012 to April 6, 2013, Martin had a solo exhibition of recent paintings, SHE, at the Sam & Adele Golden Gallery at Golden Artist Colors in

New Berlin, New York New Berlin is a town in Chenango County in central New York, United States. The population was 2,682 at the 2010 census. The town contains the village of New Berlin. The town is at the eastern border of the county and is northeast of Norwich. ...

. September 13 to October 26, 2013 saw the Knox Martin Exhibition SHE at the LGTripp Gallery in Philadelphia. On November 14, 2016, France conferred the insignia of the

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...

on Martin for his contribution to the liberation of France during World War II. From May 2 to June 1, 2019, Martin had a solo show, Knox Martin: Radical Structures, at Hollis Taggart Galleries in New York City. October 18 to December 7, 2019, Martin had a solo show, Knox Martin: New York 1962-2019, at Nancy Littlejohn Fine Art in Houston, Texas. July 18 to October 11, 2020, Martin had a solo museum exhibition, "Knox Martin: Living Legend", at the Arlington Museum of Art in Arlington, Texas. April 3 to May 1, 2021, Martin had a solo show, Knox Martin: Red and Black, at Nancy Littlejohn Fine Art in Houston, Texas. July 8 to August 6, 2021, Martin had a solo show, Knox Martin: Homage to Goya, at Hollis Taggart Galleries in New York City. January 6 to February 5, 2022, Martin had a solo show, Knox Martin: Garden of Time, at Hollis Taggart Galleries in New York City. Knox Martin was represented by Hollis Taggart Galleries.

Personal life and death

Martin died on May 15, 2022, at the age of 99.

References

Books

* Marika Herskovic
New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists
(New York School Press, 2000.) * Irving Sandler
From Avant-Garde to Pluralism: An On-The-Spot History
(Hard Press Editions, 2006.)

External links

Knox Martin websiteKnox Martin - ArtnetKnox Martin Oral History Interview, Smithsonian Archives of American ArtPublic Art Fund: VenusKnox Martin - The Whaling Wall
{{DEFAULTSORT:Martin, Knox 1923 births 2022 deaths 20th-century American male artists 20th-century American painters 20th-century American sculptors 21st-century American painters Abstract expressionist artists American male painters American muralists Painters from New York City Art Students League of New York alumni Art Students League of New York faculty American art educators American male sculptors People from Salem, Virginia Sculptors from New York (state) Military personnel from New York City United States Coast Guard personnel of World War II