DRAWINGS FROM THE WORK BOOKS OF BRICE MARDEN TO BE DISPLAYED AT THE FOGG
Released: May 14, 1998
The traveling exhibition Brice Marden: Work Books will be on display at the Fogg Art Museum from May 29 through September 6, 1998. Organized by the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich, Germany; the Kuntsmuseum Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland; and the Harvard University Art Museums, the exhibition will present approximately 400 drawings by contemporary painter Brice Marden from 24 sketchbooks dating from the mid-1960s to 1995.
The curators of the exhibition are Dieter Schwarz, director Kuntsmuseum Winterthur, and Michael Semff, curator of modern drawings and prints, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich. Brice Marden: Work Books is organized at the Harvard University Art Museums by James Cuno, Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director, and Harry Cooper, associate curator of modern art.
Born in Bronxville, New York, in 1938, Brice Marden grew up in the Westchester suburb of Briarcliff Manor and attended Florida Southern College, where he decided to be an artist. In 1958, he went to Boston University's School of Fine and Applied Arts, and from 1961 to 1963, to Yale University School of Art and Architecture. Throughout his career, Marden has explored the basic aesthetic components of color, line and shape through the traditional media of painting, drawing and printmaking.
Stylistically, Marden melds the spirit of the old masters with a modern aesthetic of abstraction. Working primarily as a painter, he produced a wealth of sensuous yet reductive monochromes early in his career, then turned to more fluid and gestural abstractions.
Although best known for his paintings, Marden is also deeply committed to drawing. According to Harry Cooper, "Marden's drawings reveal another side, a long-standing interest in gesture and touch that has surfaced in his paintings more recently. The drawings in the exhibition reflect three decades of daily practice and display all the accomplishments of a master draftsman: a responsive line, by turns cautious and decisive; a command of the gradations of light and dark; and an abiding awareness of the page as the material from which drawing is carved."
A fully-illustrated catalogue in English and German, edited and with essays by Dieter Schwarz and Michael Semff, accompanies the exhibition. The catalogue explores the intimate and personal nature of the sketchbooks as a site for graphic and artistic innovation. Dieter Schwarz and Michael Semff place the sketchbooks in the context of Marden's own artistic practice and the pictorial concerns of other artists of his generation.
The tour of Brice Marden: Work Books in the United States was made possible with the generous support of Virginia Herrick Deknatel, the Fifth Floor Foundation, Steve Martin, Kathy and Keith Sachs, the John Rosenfield Teaching Exhibition Fund, and the Alexander S. Beal, Robert L. Beal, and Bruce A. Beal Exhibition Fund.
Gallery talks: Gallery talks are free with the price of admission to the Art Museums. Hearing assists are available for gallery talks; arrangements should be made beforehand by phoning (617) 495-8286. To request a sign language interpreter, the public should call (617) 495-2397 using Massachusetts Telephone Relay Service 1-800-439-2370 three weeks in advance of the gallery talk.
Saturday, June 13, 11:30 a.m., Fogg Art Museum
with Harry Cooper, associate curator of modern art.
Sunday, June 28, 2:00 p.m., Fogg Art Museum
with Christine Mehring, Ph.D. candidate, Department of History of Art and Architecture.
Sunday, July 12, 2:00 p.m., Fogg Art Museum
with Harry Cooper, associate curator of modern art.
Sunday, July 19, 2:00 p.m., Fogg Art Museum
with Christine Mehring, Ph.D. candidate, Department of History of Art and Architecture.
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The Harvard University Art Museums' facilities are wheelchair accessible. For general information, please call (617) 495-9400. For press information or photographs, please contact Kate McShea Ewen at (617) 495-2397. For more information on events, please contact the Friends, Fellows, and Special Programs Office at (617) 495-4544. World Wide Web: www.artmuseums.harvard.edu.
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The Harvard University Art Museums comprise three museums (Busch-Reisinger Museum, Fogg Art Museum, Arthur M. Sackler Museum), all located on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, MA, at the intersection of Quincy Street and Broadway, adjacent to Harvard Yard. The Art Museums are open Monday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., and Sunday 1:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. Closed holidays. Admission is $5.00; $4.00 for senior citizens; $3.00 for students; free under 18 and on Saturday mornings. For special tour reservations, please call (617) 496-8576. General tours are offered Monday through Friday from September through June. The Fogg tour is at 11:00 a.m.; the Busch-Reisinger tour is at 1:00 p.m.; and the Sackler is at 2:00 p.m.
The Harvard University Art Museums is supported in part by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
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