Brice Marden

Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above in 1989

Klaus Kertess, Brice Marden: Paintings and Drawings, New York, 1992, p. 161, illustrated in color

Please refer to deaprtment.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Since the 1960s, Brice Marden has been making paintings, drawings, and prints that relate to both the painterly gestures of Abstract Expressionism and the intellectual rigor of Minimalism. His works at once explore the cooler side of Abstract Expressionism, yet command a sentiment that departs from the objective of both his Minimalist and Abstract Expressionist counterparts.  Marden combines Minimalist's primary geometry with the physicality and dense opticality of the Abstract Expressionists as well as searching for spirituality. Like most members of his generation he was left with the task of creating his own aesthetic culture, one commonly fraught with doubts and ambiguity, allegorized best by his deliberate use of modified monochromatic grey. A spectrum of the smoky color dominates Marden's palette through the early 1970's, ranging from celestial to ashen, flush with white or cool blue undertones.  As such, the subtle chameliotic nature of the color compels Marden's work to be fundamentally linked to nuances of light.  Light is absorbed or reflected by surfaces and fractured into color and is essentially unstable and changing, just as our ability to hold an experience, either visual, physical or emotive, is fleeting and subjective.

Despite the precision of grids and symmetry, since 1965 Marden concerned himself that his art look hand made, and void of mechanical simulation. He embellished his early monochrome panels by leaving a narrow strip of drips and smears along the bottom, representing successive implications of component pigments. In the present work, Untitled, the residual markings appear below a thin line incised and scratched with a wax crayon parallel to the bottom edge, illuminating the presence of the calculated and deliberate hand of the artist to the periphery of his own enforced boundary, "I exercise little or no control over what happens below the drawn edge." (Brice Marden)