Christie’s will hold a Christie’s auction in May where a diptych painting by the 84-year-old Marden, who passed away last year, is expected to fetch between $30 million and $50 million.
Event, a massive painting created between 2004 and 2007, will be up for auction as part of an evening sale in New York that honours art from the 20th and 21st century. The work’s sale will set a new record for Marden if it meets its low estimate.
Marden, who was born in Knoxville, New York, ran studios until his passing in Manhattan, Marrakesh, Hydra, Nevis, and Tivoli. Event is one of six paintings in the series “The Propitious Garden of Plane Image,” which features his characteristic squiggly shapes.
Retrospectives of his career at the Museum of Modern Art in 2006 and the Guggenheim Museum in 1975 were prompted by his similar works, which made him famous in New York.
Event was taken out of Marden’s New York studio in 2007 and purchased by a private collector who never brought the piece to an open exhibition.
The canvas will be on display for the first time to the public since Marden finished it 17 years ago during the opening days of Art Dubai, a significant Middle Eastern expo, prior to the sale.
The week of the May auction will coincide with additional evening sales at rival auction houses, Phillips and Sotheby’s. At $30.9 million, the sale of Complements (2004–7) at Christie’s in 2020 set the record for Marden.
ARTNEWS
