Best known for his striking calligraphic abstractions and serene early monochromes, Brice Marden is among the most esteemed and influential artists working today. In his trademark lyrical works, Marden paints a network of serpentine lines flowing hypnotically throughout the picture plane; he sometimes replaces paintbrushes with sticks or other natural implements to effect a more gestural and organic appearance. Marden draws on a range of influences in his practice, including Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg (for whom he worked) and Asian art and calligraphy, as well as the Old Masters, rejecting most of his contemporaries as overly clinical. In his early monochrome works, created amidst the Color Field Painting and Minimalism of 1960s New York, Marden used abstraction deliberately as a way to evoke an emotional and subjective response from his viewers.
Honored with a 2006 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, which traveled to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, Marden has also been the subject of one-person exhibitions at institutions such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and the Serpentine Gallery in London.