Couplet IV
Brice Marden
American, 1938–2023
1988-89
A tall oil-on-linen painting in which Marden overlays translucent, calligraphic bands of color to trace shifting rhythms and relationships between line and space.
Airy, looping bands of gray, blue, yellow, and green cross and recross like a luminous skeletal web, their thin washes revealing delicate overlaps while the pale ground breathes between them.
This Couplet shows Marden’s shift from Minimalist austerity to a lyrical abstraction that fused calligraphic gesture with subtle chromatic layering, expanding how line and space could structure modern painting.
Medium
Oil on linen
Dimensions
9' x 60" (274.3 x 152.4 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Kathy and Richard S. Fuld, Jr.
Accession
979.2005
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
