Martha Diamond

Martha Diamond was born May 1, 1944 in New York, NY. She died December 30, 2023 after a long illness. New York City was both her home and the dominant theme of her art. Her idea of urban architecture was seeded from the heights of Stuyvesant Town, where she was raised, and the skyscrapers lining Central Park, where her father, an internist, had his office. Later, the highways and suspension bridges leading into Manhattan sharpened Diamond's focus. Diamond received a Bachelor of Arts degree in art and art history at Carleton College, Northfield, MN. After a year in Paris, she earned a Master of Arts degree at New York University. She lived a loft in the Bowery since the late 1960s and was active in the downtown art and poetry scene.

Often labeled as a Neo-Expressionist painter, Martha Diamond was best known for cityscape abstractions in big, sweeping, gestural brush strokes. Influenced by Japanese prints, Diamond sometimes translated her work into print media. Her May 1996 visit to collaborate with Stewart & Stewart, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, resulted in four screenprint editions.

Buildings float on a sky of ethereal blue marks, moving the light diagonally in Air, a four-color screenprint. Hudson Group, a five-color screenprint, alludes to the artist's memory of buildings near the Hudson River. In Towers, a one-color screenprint, the repetitive patterns of the architecture create a sense of rhythm. The viewer's eyes and mind can respond to the monumentality of the towers. Vignettes, also a one-color screenprint, at first glance, seems to diverge from Diamond's usual focus on human-made structures. However, the images are specific roofscapes in New York City. All, except the secret man taking photographs, are carvings of birds, cherubs, and figurative sculptures. Diamond's interest in drawing led her to extend her imagery to the figurative architectural elements, and to use them in her paintings. When asked about the one-color screenprints, Diamond responded, "The viewer can't always tell what medium I've used. They could just as easily be paintings drawn with bamboo brushes and sumi ink." The four limited editions were printed on Rives BFK 100% rag paper measuring 41" high x 28.5" wide.

Diamond soloed at Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME; Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME; New York Studio School, New York, NY; and, in 2024, at The David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. In 2005, Diamond was included in The Art of Screenprint, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI and, in 2002, Works on Paper Published by Stewart and Stewart, Smith Andersen Editions, Palo Alto, CA. Her work has been acquired by the Art Institute of Chicago, the Brooklyn Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Detroit Institute of Arts in its Stewart & Stewart Print Archive, including one impression from each fine art print edition and monoprint series printed and published by the partnership since 1980.