PRINCENTHAL, N. (2015)Agnes Martin Her Life and Art, London: Thames & Hudson.

This is a biography on Agnes Martins life as an artist, touching on abstractism and the history of female artists all over America. Nancy Princenthal is a critic based in New York, she writes regularly for ‘Art in America’ in which she is a former Senior Editor for. The book includes images throughout, of different pieces and images of her. The book is written chronologically, talking about Martins life from birth and throughout her career with all of the ups and downs.

From the book you can really get an understanding of Martins personality, her way of thinking and beliefs come across quite strongly from the outset, which I find is one of the most important things about the book because it makes it a lot more personal to the reader. Her take on abstractism was something that really intrigued me, when explaining her method of working she wrote ‘I paint from an image that comes into my mind because I want it’ which is something I was able to relate to, such a simple and to the point sentence was a lot more to me as a lot of my work is abstract and sometimes I find it difficult to put an explanation to it. The way Martin explains it shows that it is a case of more iimagination rather than subject, choosing to create something based of an image in your mind that you think would suit and be effective.