The first biography of the visionary artist Agnes Martin, one ofthe most original and influential painters of the postwar periodOver the course of a career that spanned fifty years, Agnes Martin'saustere, serene work anticipated and helped to define Minimalism, evenas she battled psychological crises and carved out a solitary existence inthe American Southwest. I paint with my back to the world', she claimed;when she died at ninety-two, in Taos, New Mexico, it is said she had notread a newspaper in half a century.Nancy Princenthal tells her whole story chronologically from Martin'sbirth in Saskatchewan and her early years as an artist, living in derelictManhattan shipping lofts with Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly and others oftheir ilk as neighbours; to the seven years she stopped painting, just as hercareer was taking off; the months she spent roaming the country in a pickuptruck; and her last thirty years, in Taos some of that time, in an adobehouse she built with her own hands. Nancy Princenthal has written theessential Agnes Martin biography; a must-read for anyone interested inabstract painting or the history of women artists in America.