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Conjuring ancient architecture and American modernism, mysticism and religion, the spiritual and material, Elements III is part of Brice Marden’s celebrated eponymous series created between 1981 and 1984. A pivotal component of the artist’s lauded post-and-lintel construction paintings, the Elements ushered in a new era of his career, defined by Marden’s growing sensitivity to the evocative power of color. Configured in a trabeated system, four individual panels of dark red, green, yellow, and blue are unified into a singular composition. Painted between 1983 and 1984, the present work was first exhibited at the artist’s important show at the Pace Gallery, New York, in 1984 and featured at the esteemed Carnegie International the following year. With the majority of Marden’s post-and-lintel works housed in major institutional collections and important private collections, Elements III comes to auction as a rare-to-market opportunity.
The present work installed at Brice Marden: Recent Work, Pace Gallery, New York, 1984. Artwork: © Brice Marden / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Advancing from the earlier vertical monochrome panels that had launched him to international acclaim in the early 1970s, the Elements mark one of Marden’s first forays into combining horizontal and vertical planes. The artist’s investigations with post-and-lintel constructions began with Thira, 1979, which embodied the classical Greek and Roman architecture Marden encountered during his global travels. In 1981, Marden ostensibly simplified the planular dynamic into a constricted composition for the Elements paintings, which “make more insistent and abrupt the shifts from post-and-lintel to T-shape cross.”i In the present work, the elongated architectonic composition produces a vibrant tension between contained surface and radiant color, exuding a physical energy that highlights its sculptural presence and reflecting Marden’s growing “attentiveness to the relation between density and luminosity.”ii
Post-and-Lintel Construction Paintings in Notable Collections
Number One, 1983-1984. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Image: © Whitney Museum of American Art/Licensed by Scala / Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © Brice Marden / Artists Rights Society, New York 
Thira, 1979-1980. Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, Image: © CNAC/MNAM, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © Brice Marden / Artists Rights Society, New York 
Elements I, 1981-1982. Daros Collection, Switzerland, Artwork: © Brice Marden / Artists Rights Society, New York 
Elements II, 1981-1982. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Image: Pictoright Amsterdam/Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Artwork: © Brice Marden / Artists Rights Society, New York 
Coda, 1983-1984. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Image: © The Philadelphia Museum of Art / Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © Brice Marden / Artists Rights Society, New York -
Number One, 1983-1984. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Image: © Whitney Museum of American Art/Licensed by Scala / Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © Brice Marden / Artists Rights Society, New York Thira, 1979-1980. Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, Image: © CNAC/MNAM, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © Brice Marden / Artists Rights Society, New York
A Spiritual Awakening
"The paintings are made in a highly subjective state within Spartan limitations….I believe these are highly emotional paintings not to be admired for any technical or intellectual reason but to be felt."
—Brice Marden
Barnett Newman, Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue IV, 1969-1970. Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Image: bpk Bildagentur / Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen / Jörg P. Anders / Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © Barnett Newman Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York While the shift to an austere T-shape composition seemingly pushed his reductive formalism further into Minimalist territory, Marden increasingly developed a nuanced approach to color and interest in spirituality that imbued his work with a poetic sensibility and personal resonance. Recalling the pure color fields of Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko, the Elements series showcases Marden’s spiritual and mystical treatment of color. After becoming inspired by Newman’s late work at the artist’s 1971 MoMA retrospective, Marden visited the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas, in 1972, which stimulated his desire to resonate the emotive power of color from purely painted panels. Although he had employed primary colors by the mid-1970s, the Elements represent Marden’s deep meditations on the meaningful associations that formalism could engender.
"Basic color choices are originally dictated by a scheme which equates his expanded range of primaries—red, yellow, green and blue—with the natural elements: fire, air, earth, and water. These in turn are accorded the more mystical associations of, respectively, spirit, mind, body and soul."
—Robert Storr, 1985
[left] Brice Marden's Window Study II (For Basel Munster) on the cover of Artforum, September 1983. Artwork: © Brice Marden / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York [right] Gerhard Richter, Kölner Domfenster (Cologne Cathedral Window), 2007. Cologne Cathedral, Germany, Artwork: © 2021 Gerhard Richter In 1978, Marden received a commission to design new stained-glass windows for the apse of the Basel Cathedral. This had a profound impact on his art and served as the basis for the Elements series. Though the project was terminated in 1985 and ultimately never materialized, it allowed Marden to explore new technical, formal, and affective investigations related to light and color that found articulation in his Elements. As expressed in the series title and the works’ symbolic colors, Marden embraced the elements of medieval alchemy, a subject that preoccupied him while he was developing his design for the cathedral windows. As Klaus Kertess explains, “It was through these states that the primordial emanation (Telesma) was thought to pass from the sun to transform the material opposites into a new unity of the immaterial. Here employing colors more symbolically than referentially, Marden sought a unity that like alchemy would dissolve and resolve the material into immanence.”iii
The artist’s notes for Elements III, “Notes 1979-82/84,” reproduced in the 1984 Pace Gallery exhibition catalogue. Artwork: © Brice Marden / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York As Brenda Richardson has observed, Marden’s preparatory notes for Elements III reveal his fastidious considerations on matters of color: “orig black over ptd/with terre vert/earth ptg./landscapes…More red in the yellow/for the yellow in the/red.”iv The year Marden began his Elements series, he replaced his wax-based oil binder with terpineol—a thinner oil medium that dries flat to the surface—for its transparent capacity to present pure color unhindered by shine and reflective light. Departing from his previously dense, opaque surfaces, Marden drew color and surface into tighter alignment in the Elements paintings as the pure fields of brilliant color dominate the physical individuality of the planes.
In his review of the 1984 Pace Gallery show, Robert Storr highlighted this effect of the exhibited works, noting that they “are infused with the glow of color that not merely applied as a structural marker slowly mixed, layered, and arrived at. The resulting resonance is indeed like that of the painters such as the Zubarán....With their post-and-lintel construction and intervals of alternately yielding and resisting surfaces and fields of color, these five paintings suggest portals and arcades—elemental architecture and the landscape visible beyond.”vi Klaus Kertess, Brice Marden: Paintings and Drawings, New York, 1992, p. 31.
ii Robert Storr, “Brice Marden: Double Vision,” Art in America, March 1985, p. 122.
iii Klaus Kertess, Brice Marden: Paintings and Drawings, New York, 1992, p. 31.
iv Brenda Richardson, “Even a Stone Knows You,” Plane Image: A Brice Marden Retrospective, pp. 99-100.
v Robert Storr, “Brice Marden: Double Vision,” Art in America, March 1985, pp. 119, 122.Provenance
The Pace Gallery, New York
Douglas S. Cramer, Los Angeles
Matthew Marks Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2005Exhibited
New York, The Pace Gallery, Brice Marden: Recent Work, September 28 - October 27, 1984, no. 5, n.p. (illustrated; preparatory sketch for the present work illustrated, n.p.)
Pittsburgh, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, 1985 Carnegie International, November 9, 1985 – January 5, 1986, p. 187 (illustrated)Literature
Robert Storr, “Brice Marden: Double Vision,” Art in America, March 1985, p. 122 (The Pace Gallery, New York, 1985 installation view illustrated, p. 125)
Artist Biography
Brice Marden
American • 1938 - N/A
Born in Bronxville and working between New York City, Tivoli, New York, and Hydra, Greece, Brice Marden developed a unique style that departs from his Abstract Expressionist and Minimalist contemporaries. Drawing from his personal experiences and global travels, Marden’s works demonstrate a gestural and organic emotion channeled through the power of color. By the late 1960s, Marden received international recognition as the master of the monochrome panel and, in the late 1970s, began exploring the relationship between horizontal and vertical planes. His practice is deeply informed by his knowledge of classical architecture, world religion, ancient history, and spirituality. Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1998, Marden is represented in notable institutional collections including the Whitney Museum of Art, New York, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
Property of an Important American Collector
Ο◆17
Elements III
signed and titled "ELEMENTS III B. Marden" on the reverse of the green panel; inscribed "EIII" on the reverse of the red, blue and yellow panels
oil on canvas, in 4 parts
84 x 36 1/4 in. (213.4 x 92.1 cm)
Painted in 1983-1984.
Estimate
$3,200,000 - 3,800,000
Sold for $5,233,000
Amanda Lo Iacono
Head of Auctions
New York
+1 212 940 1278
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale
New York Auction 23 June 2021
1
Cinga Samson
Two piece 1
Estimate $25,000 - 35,000
Sold for $378,000
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2
Jadé Fadojutimi
Untitled
Estimate $40,000 - 60,000
Sold for $390,600
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3
Salman Toor
Fort Greene
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $478,800
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4
Avery Singer
Untitled
Estimate $1,200,000 - 1,800,000
Sold for $4,144,000
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5
Matthew Wong
The Reader
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $2,329,000
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6
Winston Churchill
The Moat, Breccles
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,845,000
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7
Matthew Wong
Field in a Dream
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $2,934,000
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8
Jean Dubuffet
L'homme à la toque
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,571,000
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9
Emily Mae Smith
Waiting Room
Estimate $40,000 - 60,000
Sold for $756,000
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10
Nicole Eisenman
Whatever Guy
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $840,700
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11
Norman Lewis
Abstract City
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,119,000
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12
Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol
Bananas
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $4,300,000
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13
David Hockney
A Neat Lawn
Estimate $9,500,000 - 10,500,000
Sold for $11,000,000
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14
Vija Celmins
Untitled (Ocean)
Estimate $5,500,000 - 6,500,000
Sold for $7,748,000
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15
Carmen Herrera
Green and Orange
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,200,000
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16
This lot is no longer available.
17
Brice Marden
Elements III
Estimate $3,200,000 - 3,800,000
Sold for $5,233,000
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18
Amoako Boafo
Untitled
Estimate $80,000 - 120,000
Sold for $655,200
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19
Titus Kaphar
Untitled III
Estimate $300,000 - 400,000
Sold for $1,058,500
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20
Amy Sherald
It Made Sense...Mostly In Her Mind
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $3,539,000
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21
Wayne Thiebaud
Winding River
Estimate $6,000,000 - 8,000,000
Sold for $9,809,000
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22
Mark Rothko
Untitled
Estimate $3,500,000 - 4,500,000
Sold for $3,700,000
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23
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Batman
Estimate $1,600,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,800,000
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24
Keith Haring
Untitled (For John Sex)
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $899,000
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25
Takashi Murakami
Red Demon and Blue Demon with 48 Arhats
Estimate $3,500,000 - 4,500,000
Sold for $6,080,000
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26
Gerhard Richter
Abstraktes Bild (940-2)
Estimate $4,500,000 - 5,500,000
Sold for $5,112,000
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27
Joan Mitchell
Untitled
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $3,902,000
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28
Willem de Kooning
East Hampton V
Estimate $700,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $3,055,000
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29
Amy Sillman
Flower Giver
Estimate $300,000 - 400,000
Sold for $598,500
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30
Alexander Calder
Fourteen Black Leaves
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,300,000
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31
This lot is no longer available.
32
Julie Curtiss
Three Widows
Estimate $110,000 - 150,000
Sold for $466,200
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33
Norman Rockwell
My Mother (Soldier with French Woman)
Estimate $350,000 - 500,000
Sold for $504,000
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34
Richard Prince
Nurses Dormitory #3
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,482,000
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35
Mickalene Thomas
Portrait of Jessica
Estimate $200,000 - 300,000
Sold for $1,542,500
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36
Andy Warhol
Mao
Estimate $3,500,000 - 4,500,000
Sold for $3,000,000
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37
Georg Baselitz
Drei Herzen (Three Hearts)
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $2,450,000
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38
Carl Andre
36 Copper Square
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $2,692,000
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39
Robert Rauschenberg
Untitled (Elemental Sculpture)
Estimate $250,000 - 350,000
Sold for $315,000
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40
Bruce Nauman
Musical Chair
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,482,000
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41
David Hammons
It’s Not Necessary
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $5,475,000
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42
Andy Warhol
Shadow (Double)
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $877,000
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43
Toyin Ojih Odutola
Quality Control
Estimate $150,000 - 200,000
Sold for $340,200
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44
Robert Colescott
Gift of the Sea
Estimate $300,000 - 500,000
Sold for $504,000
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45
Dana Schutz
Swiss Family Traveling
Estimate $1,200,000 - 1,800,000
Sold for $1,482,000
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46
Banksy
Love Is In The Air
Estimate $1,000,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,179,500
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47
Keith Haring
Untitled
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,482,000
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48
Louise Bourgeois
Labyrinthine Tower
Estimate $550,000 - 750,000
Sold for $756,000
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49
Paul McCarthy
White Snow Dwarf (Doc)
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $403,200
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50No Reserve
Jeff Koons
Gazing Ball (Demeter)
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000 •
Sold for $998,000
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