Artist Brice Marden has died.
His daughter, Mirabelle Marden, wrote on Instagram that Marden had died on Wednesday at his home in Tivoli, New York, noting that he had continued painting up until Saturday.
He was lucky to live a long life doing what he loved.”
Brice Marden was born on October 15, 1938, in Bronxville, New York, not far from Manhattan. Marden came to art through his neighbor, a painter, and he would go on to study at the Boston University of Fine and Applied Arts and later, as a graduate student, at Yale, where his cohorts included Chuck Close, Robert Mangold, and Richard Serra.
In recent years, Marden has ascended to the status of an art star, hitting an auction record high of $30+ million in 2020. He appeared in three editions of Documenta, five Whitney Biennials, and one Venice Biennale between the 70s and 90s.
Brice Marden, Complements, sold at Christie’s in 2020 for $30,920,000
Brice Marden, Chalk, 2013-2021
In 2017, he departed his longtime dealer Matthew Marks for the Gagosian, a decision Marden said was prompted by a need for change during the later stages of his career.
Dealer Larry Gagosian said in a statement,
Brice Marden was one of our greatest American artists, whose achievement in continuing and extending the tradition of painting has long been recognized and celebrated the world over.
He was a painter of rare insight into the pleasure and poetry of his medium; always dedicated to gesture, chance, substance—the elemental matters of art. Brice and Helen have been friends of mine for many years, and it has been an honor to share his masterful work with an international audience.
This loss is profound, and he will be missed.”
Marden had been battling cancer for the past few years. While Marden had not often discussed his disease in interviews, his wife, the artist Helen Marden, publicly documented his treatments, in an attempt, she said, to encourage others to feel more familiar with the ailment.
He said in 2006,
I’ve shown a painting two times before I thought it was finished. I’d take it back, rework it, put it out again, then take it back and rework it again.”
Brice Marden was 84.
(Photo, Mirabelle Marden; via ArtNews)
