Barry Martin

Barry Martin
Born(1943-02-20)20 February 1943
Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England
Died12 December 2025(2025-12-12) (aged 82)
EducationGoldsmith's College
St Martin's School of Art
MovementKinetic art

Barry Martin (20 February 1943 – 12 December 2025) was a British artist associated with the kinetic art movement of the 1960s, in which physical movement was incorporated into art.[1] Martin also explored ideas of movement in the activities of games: among artists whose work has explored chess, Martin was described as "perhaps the most important".[2] His work appears in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum,[3] Tate,[4] and British Council,[5] among others. According to the Victoria and Albert Museum:

[Martin] has worked in various media - including kinetic sculpture, film, performance, and the making of environments - but the constant in his work has been drawing, either as a working tool, as a means of recording and observing, or as an end in itself. For Martin, drawing is a system of signs analogous to those of language, and also an intellectual process of enquiry, analysis and proposition.[6]

Martin died on 12 December 2025, at the age of 82.[7]

References

  1. ^ "Barry Martin (b.1943) | Art UK". www.artuk.org.
  2. ^ Bryant, J. (2008). The Tomorrow of My Yesterday: The Complete Works of Barry Martin. Veenman Publishers. ISBN 9789086901159.
  3. ^ "Your Search Results | Search the Collections | Victoria and Albert Museum". collections.vam.ac.uk.
  4. ^ "Barry Martin born 1943 | Tate". Tate.
  5. ^ Council, British. "Barry Martin | Artists | Collection | British Council − Visual Arts". visualarts.britishcouncil.org.
  6. ^ Museum, Victoria and Albert. "Jigger Jagger | Martin, Barry | V&A Explore The Collections". Victoria and Albert Museum: Explore the Collections.
  7. ^ "Barry Martin obituary: kinetic artist with love of chess". The Times. 4 January 2026. Retrieved 4 January 2026.