Page 28 - Studio International - March 1968

The Constructive art of Mary Martin

Alan Bowness

Mary Martin's recent Constructive art doesn't encourage lengthy critical appre­ the property oflife, and will be reflected in any living art
work is at Axiom Gallery, ciation, and remarkably little has been written about or architecture', she writes, and this 'change and move­
London, until March 16. Mary Martin, considering the distinction and importance ment' is exactly what one see in her work. 'The con­
or her work. It has a self-sufficiency and a disciplined structions such as I seek to make are based on implications
spareness that make words seem imprecise instruments, or movement and infinity by positive and negative means.
too quickly given over to associations that are not war­ This is very close to the language orBuddhi t philosophy,'
ranted by the work itself. One hesitates to attempt more Mary Martin wrote in a short note on' Art and Philosophy'
than the kind of formal analysis that the artist herself, as in the Dutch magazine Structure 1962 No. 2.
her statement on page 121 shows, can do much better and A for the limitations of constructed art, these are
with infinitely more authority than any critic can hope to accepted as inevitable in the historical circumstances.
achieve. For we are at a moment in time when limited forms carry
And yet there are certain things that need saying. The an overriding persuasiveness: they alone seem to possess
work belongs to that current or thinking about art which clarity and conviction. One must go back to first
ees it as 'the evolution of visual knowledge'-to quote the principles, and the lesson or Mary Martin's work is
words used by Charles Biederman in the title of his cele­ perhaps that it is better to get small things absolutely
brated book. Thus the artist's role is, according to Bieder­ right than to flounder in a sea of over-ambition.
man, 'to penetrate into the natural laws that govern the
r
world f om which his art inevitably originates'. By doing Mary Martin made her first abstract paintings in 1950;
this, he performs a social duty, because this kind of artistic her first reliefs in 1951; and since this time her work
activity has a specifically regenerative function, and seems to me to fall into three distinct phases. The first
ociety can only survive by constantly remaking it elf. period lasts from I 950 until I 956-7. It wa a time when
It is this idea of a socially re ponsible investigation or the idea of a constructed abstract art was firmly re­
natural order that underlies all of Mary Martin's work, established in England.* This wa done, in the face of a
founded as it is on the conviction that there is a logical largely indifferent public, by a small group or artist who
process of growth which can be applied to art, just as * I say re-established, thinking of Ben Nicholson's While Reliefs
readily as it can be applied to molecular structure, or to in the 1930s. Nicholson's inOuence was important, but, like his.
the nature of the universe. 'Change and movement are geographical situation at that time, a little remote.

Mary Martin
Born Folkes.tone 1907, studied at Goldsmiths School of Art and
at the Royal College of Art. Lives in London.
Statements
in Nine Abstract Artists by L. Alloway 1954
in 'This is Tomorrow' catalogue. Whitechapel Art Gallery 1956
in 'Statements' catalogue. I.C.A. 1957
in Architectural Design Vol XXXI No. II Nov. 1961
Articles
Art, architecture and technology Structure Amsterdam No. 4/1/61.
Art and philosophy Structure Amsterdam No. 4/2/62.
Art and society Structure Amsterdam No. 5/1/62.
Construction Structure Amsterdam No. 5/2/63.
Bibliography
L. Alloway. 'Real Places' in Architectural Design Vol XXVII No. 6
D. Sylvester. Introduction to catalogue. Molton & Lords 1964

Spiral movement 1951
Painted chipboard
18 X 18 X 3 in.
Collection: Tate Gallery
120