Brice Marden considers the process of painting to be “about transformation. Taking that earth, that heavy earthen kind of thing, turning it into air and light.” In the 1980s Marden developed a fluid, calligraphic line that resulted in shimmering, interlaced compositions such as Study for the Muses (Eaglesmere Version). His paintings slow the spontaneous brushwork of gestural abstraction to an almost meditative pace. Though it is called a “study,” Marden worked and reworked this painting across nearly a decade, completing it in his studio in Eagles Mere, Pennsylvania, which he describes as the most “Zen-like” of his workspaces. The landscape of Eagles Mere is wet and overgrown with moss and hemlock, features echoed in this painting’s muted palette.
Date
Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.
Charles Wylie, Brice Marden: Work of the 1990s: Painting, Drawings, and Prints, exh. cat. (Dallas: Dallas Museum of Art in association with Distributed Art Publishers, 1999), 25, 53, 60-61, cat. 11 (color ill.), 62, 69.
Harry Cooper, Lisa G. Corrin, and Julia Peyton-Jones, Brice Marden, exh. cat. (London: Serpentine Gallery, 2000), 9, 28, 41-41, cat. 8 (color ill.).
Gary Garrels, with Richard Shiff, Brenda Richardson, Carol Mancusi-Ungaro, and Michael Duff, Plane Image: A Brice Marden Retrospective, exh. cat. (New York, The Museum of Modern Art, 2006), 92, 95.
James Rondeau, Edlis/Neeson Collection: The Art Institute of Chicago, (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago; New Haven: Yale University Press), 68, pl. 27, 69 (color ill.), 130.
New York, Matthew Marks Gallery, Willem de Kooning, Peter Fischli, David Weiss, Lucian Freud, Katharina Fritsch, Roni Horn, Ellsworth Kelly, Brice Marden, Sept. 25–Nov. 27, 1999, no cat.
Dallas Museum of Art, Brice Marden: Work of the 1990s; Paintings, Drawings, and Prints, Feb. 14– Apr. 25, 1999, cat. 11; Washington, D.C., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, May 27–Sept. 6, 1999; Miami Art Museum, Dec. 17, 1999–Mar. 5, 2000; Pittsburgh, Carnegie Museum of Art, May 6-Aug. 6, 2000 (cat. dates May 20–Aug. 13).
The artist; sold through Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, to Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson, Chicago, Mar. 4, 2002 [copy of invoice in curatorial object file]; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, Apr. 17, 2005.
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