Agnes Martin: Life and Work

Influences

Chryssa's first solo exhibition

An equally important bond between Chryssa and Martin, and one they shared with Tawney, was the challenge of succeeding as a woman in an art world dominated by men.

—Nancy Princenthal on the book Agnes Martin: Her Life and Art

Chryssa Vardea-Mavromichali (1933 – 2013) was a Greek American artist who worked in a wide variety o...

In 1961, the Guggenheim Museum presented a solo exhibition of Chryssa's work, a remarkable honor for a twenty-eight-year-old. Meanwhile, she had begun using neon in her sculpture, sometimes incorporating rheostats so viewers could control the electric current; in these works, letters and words became something more than linguistic elements. From 1964 to 1966 she constructed a gigantic assemblage that she called The Gates to Times Square. Two huge letter As form the "gates" to a gleaming block of stainless steel and Plexiglas that seems to quiver in the play of pale blue neon light.

—Chryssa's biography on Art Topos

Five Variations on the Ampersand, 1966. Neon in tinted-plexiglass vitrines.

Agnes Martin: Life and Work

This timespace tells the story of the life and art of Agnes Martin.