NEW YORK – This May, Christie’s 21st Century Evening Sale will be led by Event, a monumental masterpiece by Brice Marden. A dynamic and expressive work, Event forms part of Marden’s ‘summation’ paintings – paintings that represent a culmination of the ideas and processes he developed and honed over the span of his career.

Event is one of only six works which make up Marden’s most ambitious series: The Propitious Garden of Plane Image. The group comprises one small and two mural-sized, six-panel eponymous paintings, the Third Version of which is in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, as well as three diptychs: Extremes, in the collection of the Centre Pompidou, Paris, Complements which made the world auction record for the artist at Christie’s in 2020 and, Event, the current work. Apart from the First Version, each panel of all Propitious Garden works has the same 6 x 4 ft dimensions.

Event (estimated at $30 - 50 million), is poised to establish a new record for the artist. This is a rare opportunity to acquire a piece from the series that is paramount to Marden’s oeuvre, self-referred to as ‘Plane Image’ - a phrase that summed up his lifelong resolution to synthesize the plane and the image. It was also the title he chose for catalogue of his landmark retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2006. Never before exhibited in public, Event has been in a prestigious private collection since it left the studio in 2007. The work will debut in Dubai on 26 February, coinciding with Art Dubai, the leading art fair in the Middle East; following which, it will tour to Hong Kong alongside Art Basel on 27 March, and Los Angeles in April before previewing in New York ahead of its May auction.

Sara Friedlander, Deputy Chairman, Post-War and Contemporary Art, Christie’s: “We are honored to present Event as the leading highlight of New York’s Marquee Week of sales this May. This painting marks the finest example by Brice Marden to come to auction. Throughout his career, Mr. Marden demonstrated his enduring commitment to abstraction: each hue carefully chosen and every brushstroke intentional in his pursuit of painting’s divine power. Event is a brilliant and symphonic exploration of the tension between two planar surfaces joined in harmonious resonance, to regard it is a mediation akin to breathing. We are deeply thrilled to bring this work to market specifically within the context of our 21st Century Evening Sale.”

Brice Marden passed away in August of 2023. Born in Bronxville, New York in 1938, extensive travel had taken him to places and cultures that became essential to his work - from the landscapes of Greece to the scholars’ rocks and calligraphy of ancient China. He was amongst the most highly celebrated contemporary artists of the 20th/21st century. According to Roberta Smith of The New York Times, he reconnected Minimalism with Abstract Expressionism. He was described by Peter Schjeldahl in The New Yorker as “the most profound abstract painter of the last four decades”, and by The New York Times as “one of the most admired and influential artists of his generation”.

In 2020, Christie’s New York established the current record price for Brice Marden with the sale of Complements, sold for $30.9 million.

Tour Dates

Dubai | 26 February – 8 March 2024
Hong Kong | 27 – 30 March
Los Angeles | 12 – 18 April