Marden, Brice (1938- ), American painter, draftsman, and printmaker who established his reputation as an artist with austere, deliberate abstractions that reflect his meditative and spiritual approach to making art. He is often associated with the art movement known as minimalism (see Painting: New Abstract Tendencies), but his subjective approach to art links him more accurately with the color-field painters of abstract expressionism, including such American artists as Mark Rothko.

Born in Bronxville, New York, Marden grew up in Briarcliff Manor, a suburb of New York City. He received his bachelor's degree in fine arts from Boston University (1961) and a master of fine arts degree from Yale University (1963), after which he moved to New York City.

From 1963 to 1968, Marden used oil paint mixed with beeswax to paint panels that have a complex, layered appearance despite their being limited to a single color. The three-panel painting Red, Yellow, Blue I (1974, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York) is characteristic of Marden's work of the 1970s, which typically featured multiple panels joined either horizontally or vertically, each panel devoted to a single, ponderously applied color.

Marden's colors, often so unusual they prove difficult to categorize, lend a dreamy, emotive quality to his work, suggesting content despite their lack of recognizable form and their superficial appearance as simple monochromatic rectangles. In 1973, when Marden began spending summers in Greece, Mediterranean themes and colors began figuring prominently in his art. Grove Group (1972-1976, private collection, San Francisco, California) was inspired by his interpretation of Greek olive groves as ancient, sacred groves of the Muses. In Thira (1979-1980, Georges Pompidou Art and Culture Foundation, New York City), Marden placed horizontal panels on top of vertical ones, suggesting both primitive doors and Greek religious imagery.

The pieces in Marden's Hydra series (1983) are weblike drawings executed with long twigs dipped in ink, a technique he had used in drawings since 1972. Marden became interested in Japanese and Chinese calligraphy in 1984. About this time, he began to adapt the linear technique of his drawings to the medium of painting. Large paintings in the Cold Mountain series (1989-1991) refer to Tang (T’ang)-dynasty Chinese poet and calligrapher Han Shan. These paintings flow with layers of organic, interlocking lines and spontaneous dripping.