Brice Marden

Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris
Private Collection, Belgium (acquired from the above)
Acquired by the present owner from the above

Paris, Galerie Yvon Lambert, Brice Marden, January - February 1975

This work is in very good condition. Along the extreme bottom edge, there are a small number of areas of lacunae in the pigment, revealing the primer layer, some of which are inherent to the artist's technique and one of which may have associated minor lifting, located 5 ½ - 6" from the lower left corner. On extremely close inspection and at raking angles, minor linear marks or rubs can be detected scattered overall primarily in the upper portion. There is a slight draw to the canvas in the upper left corner. Under ultraviolet light there are no apparent restorations. The canvas is not framed.
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.
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Brice Marden has been called the poet of Minimalism. Alongside his contemporaries Agnes Martin and Robert Ryman, he insisted that painting still had something to offer within the context of the predominant art movement of his time, which focused on art as objects that could corporeally relate to the viewer. Throughout his remarkable career, Marden operated in the divide between painting and material object, creating a corpus of monochromatic works that share a deep affinity with his illustrious forebear Jasper Johns, who also investigated the intersection between painting and sculpture. Marden set himself apart, however, by acknowledging the mystery and metaphysical associations evoked by his painted panels: "The rectangle, the plane, the structure, the picture are sounding boards for a spirit.’’ (Brice Marden, ``Statements, Notes & Interviews (1963-1981)’’ in Exh. Cat., London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Brice Marden: Paintings, Drawings and Prints, 1981, p. 54)

Paris Green I, executed in 1973, is emblematic of Marden’s monochromatic canvases, which showcase the artist’s approach to painting as a field for experimentation within the permutations of planes, rectangles, structure, color and light. Whereas Johns chose gray for its non-representational quality, Marden perceived monochromatic colors as rich in allusions and expressiveness, and in this regard, Marden's work is more in sympathy with Mark Rothko's paintings which sought an impassioned form of Abstract Expressionism. Both artists employed rigorous and reductive approaches to color, shape, balance and composition, and Rothko's paintings in somber tones of the late 1960s were some of his most transcendent canvases, evoking an enigmatic presence and mood for the viewer. In similar fashion, single colors, laid on in lush textures afforded by the waxy medium as in Paris Green I, provided a starting point for Marden. The colors worked to link the painted object to the viewer, who sees not only with the eyes of objective vision, but with eyes accustomed to seeing poetic allusions and subjective memories. As the artist himself declared, "I begin work with some vague color idea; a memory of a space, a color presence, a color I think I have seen... A dark black green seen slightly after a foggy dusk.’’ (Brice Marden quoted in Carl Andre, ``New York in New York,’’ Arts Magazine, May 1967, p. 50)