Collection Online as of June 4, 2023

(American, 1938-)

Oil and wax on canvas

Unframed: 182.8 x 137.2 cm (71 15/16 x 54 in.)

Gift of Agnes Gund given in honor of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Centennial 2017.127

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

Later in his career, Marden dispensed with the wax technique used in <em>Sea Painting I</em> and developed a new method of mixing terpineol with oil to produce a pigment better suited to conveying the physicality of the canvas.

Description

Brice Marden made his first monochromatic, single-panel painting in the winter of 1964. During the next 20 years, he created spare, abstract, often multipaneled paintings that won national acclaim. In Sea Painting I, two rectangular canvases were painted with a mixture of beeswax and oil—known as encaustic—creating a smooth, dense surface with a matte finish.

Marden tested the reductionist tendencies of Minimalism by reintroducing references to landscape into a seemingly abstract painting. Here, he used subtle tones of gray-green that suggest water and atmosphere. The sharp split of color alludes to the division between sky and ocean and a limitless view to the horizon.

Citations

Sims, Lowery Stokes. The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content, and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 75, no. 110

Griswold, William M. “Recent Acquisitions (2013-20) at the Cleveland Museum of Art.” Burlington Magazine 163, no. 1414 (January 2021): 93-104. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 101, no. 16; mentioned: P. 93

Exhibition history

MOCA Cleveland (6/9/2006 - 8/20/2006): "The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art", no. 110.

The Cleveland Museum of Art (03/17/2018-06/06/2018): "Recent Acquisitions 2014-2017"

The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (MOCA), Cleveland, OH (June 9-August 20, 2006).

Recent Acquisitions. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 17-June 7, 2018).