Brice Marden

Previous owner: Fredrick Sergenian, New York; private collection
Acquisition: Reinhard Ernst Collection, Christie’s, New York, 2018

Brice Marden painted Quaquaversals when he was 23 years old. It is one of his earliest abstract paintings, done shortly before he began his master’s studies at Yale University of Art and Architecture. Even as a young man, Marden admired the brushwork of Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning, but he was determined to forge his own path: ‘I thought that’s really what it’s about. You’ve got to learn to paint like yourself.’ [1]

In Quaquaversals, powerful black shapes are connected on a white ground by rapidly drawn lines reminiscent of calligraphic elements. The white surface of the painting does not merely serve as a background, it is activated: Marden challenges the traditional relationship between figure and ground by superimposing layers of black and white paint and laying white brushstrokes over black forms. The result is an arrangement of shapes that radiate out from the centre of the canvas, building layer upon layer before coming together to form a complete whole. The work takes its name from the composition: Quaquaversals means spreading out from a centre in all directions.

It is a testament to Marden’s early interest in signs and calligraphic elements. The artist was fascinated by the exhibition ‘Masters of Japanese Calligraphy, 8-19th century,’ at the Japan House Gallery and Asia Society Galleries in New York in 1984/85. He travelled to Thailand, Sri Lanka, and India, as well as to Japan, China, and Hong Kong in the 1980s and 1990s. This inspired him to explore Asian culture, art, and landscape and to incorporate many of these cultural elements into his later work.

[1] Brice Marden, quoted in Gary Garrels, ‘Beholding Light and Experience: The Art of Brice Marden’, in: Plane Image: A Brice Marden Retrospective, ed. by Gary Garrels, ext. cat. Museum of Modern Art, New York 2006, p. 14.