Articles, notes and lectures by Kenneth Martin

Kenneth Martin was an abstract painter in oils, a constructivist, and a printmaker. The collection consists of photocopies, notes, drafts, articles, transcripts and letters written by Kenneth Martin between 1955 and 1974. The subjects covered include 'On the Mobile', his fountain in stainless steel, kinetics, 'Construction from Within', construction as a process, 'Rotary Rings', 'Scale and Change', 'La Place du Chatelet', Charles Biederman, Richard Lohse, and 'Reflections'. Some of the items were used in the Kenneth Martin exhibition and catalogue, Tate Gallery, May-June 1975.

Kenneth Martin was born in Sheffield in April 1905. He studied at Sheffield School of Art between 1927 and 1929, and at the Royal College of Art between 1929 and 1932. In 1930, he married Mary Balmsford (Mary Martin, artist). In 1946, he started as a visiting teacher at Goldsmiths' College of Art, a post he held until 1967. Martin spent his early career doing figurative painting, but started producing abstract paintings in 1948-49. In the early 1950s he was associated with a constructivist group, including Pasmore, Hill, Adams, Heath and his wife, Mary. The group was influenced by the writings of Biederman. From 1951, Martin began to publish widely on art and constructivist theory. Also at this time, he began to make mobiles which developed his ideas on form, scale and natural forces. In the 1960s Martin became interested in the role of chance and started producing drawings based on the chance selection of numbers determining the placement of lines on a grid. In 1969, he began work on his 'Chance and Order' paintings. Kenneth Martin received many public commissions and awards, including an OBE in 1971. He died in 1984.

The items have been arranged chronologically.

OPEN

Paper list available

Presented by the Tate Gallery Exhibitions Department, 1975.

Photographs and descriptions of 126 works, 1949-1970 (TAM 18C 1-17); Private View Card and correspondence re 'Essays in Movement', 1960 (TGA 955/1/12/118); statement 'On Art of Environment', 1952 (TGA 7919/6/3); five exhibition catalogues, 1952-1969 (in TGA 7919/5 and TGA 815/1/7); poster for a London Group exhibition, 1961 (TAP 1422); recording of KM talking to Richard Francis about his work, 1981 (TAV 261A).