Mary Martin

(British, 1907-1969)

Six Groups 91.5 x 91.5 x 9cm (36 x 36 x 3 1/2in) (unframed)

Footnotes

Provenance
With Molton & Lords Gallery, London, 1964, where acquired by
Dennis Lennon, thence by descent to the present owner
Private Collection, U.K.

Exhibited
London, Molton & Lords Gallery, Mary Martin, February 1964, cat. no.14

Mary Martin was an innovative Constructivist artist, part of an avant-garde group which included Victor Pasmore, Robert Adams, Adrian Heath, Anthony Hill and her husband Kenneth Martin, who she had met while studying at the Royal College of Art. Martin explored the possibilities of making constructed abstract art, often using the medium of the relief and three-dimensional forms to do this, beginning from the early 1950s onwards. She is best known for her complex reliefs which used square and rectangular shapes organised in different permutations often to dazzling effect, exploring the many combinations she could create from the repetition of one simple element, which later focussed on the cube. As she herself wrote in 1957, 'the end is always to achieve simplicity'.

Six Groups is a particularly striking example of Martin's signature style, and at 91.5 x 91.5cm, it is larger in scale than the majority of her other reliefs. This work was included in her solo exhibition at Molton and Lords Gallery in 1964, where Martin showed a number of related relief constructions. The common unit for all these works was the right-angled wedge, created from a cube of wood cut diagonally in half, with the rectangular surfaces then covered in a thin sheet of stainless steel, each set at 45 degrees. Set against an impressive background of black Formica, the reflective surfaces of the stainless steel are arranged to catch the light at numerous different angles. As David Sylvester noted in the catalogue essay accompanying her exhibition at Molton and Lords in 1964: 'The wedges are juxtaposed with the reflecting surface facing in all the various possible directions, so creating jagged contrasts of light and shadow which change as the spectator's position or the direction of the light changes.' (D. Sylvester, Mary Martin, Molton & Lords, 1964, n.p.) Despite creating a relief using hard, industrial materials in geometric shapes, Martin creates a sense of movement and rhythm into which the viewer is drawn to interact.

The present work takes its title from the six groups of sixteen wedges which are arranged in a four by four formation. The groups have then been arranged asymmetrically on the Formica background, allowing the negative spaces to fill the remaining areas of the square. Six Groups shares with all Martin's reliefs an underlying mathematical logic, and she used principles informed by the Golden Section, Fibonacci sequences and pendulum permutations to devise the complex patterns she created.

The present work has a special and interesting provenance, having been acquired from Molton and Lords Gallery in 1964 by the architect Dennis Lennon. Dennis Lennon was one of London's leading architects and designers in the 1960s. After a distinguished career in the war, his first job was with Maxwell Fry. Following this he became director of the Rayon Design Centre, where he offered the up-and-coming young designer Terence Conran his first job after seeing his end-of-term show. He set up his own practice in 1950, and was one of designers for the 1951 Festival of Britain. Examples of his furniture designs are in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and from 1963-1998 he was the set designer for many productions at Glyndebourne. He was also responsible for co-ordinating the design for the Cunard ocean liner the Queen Elizabeth II in the 1960s. In 1968, House and Garden magazine illustrated Six Groups hanging in situ in Dennis Lennon's home, Hampermill House. He was a great patron of the arts, and bought many pieces from up-and-coming artists of the time, and knew Francis Bacon, John Piper and Graham Sutherland.

Particularly striking and impressive, Six Groups is a formidable example of Martin's best work, and the scarcity of her reliefs means that the chance to acquire one is a rare opportunity. A similar work, Spiral, also created in 1963 and exhibited alongside Six Groups in 1964 at Molton and Lords Gallery, is in the collection of the Tate, London, who acquired it directly from the above exhibition in 1964.

We are grateful to Dr. Susan Tebby and the Estate of Mary Martin for their assistance in cataloguing this lot. A full analysis of the mathematical systems used in Six Groups by Dr. Susan Tebby is available on request.