Summer Table

Brice Marden’s Summer Table is divided into three equally sized but differently colored panels, all free of explicit representational reference and obvious brushstrokes. Marden used a spatula to smooth out the paint, creating a matte but lustrous surface. However, he also left a strip of canvas at the bottom with drips and splashes of paint, thus displaying the process that is camouflaged in the rest of the work. The evidence of process relates Marden’s work to the gesture-filled Abstract Expressionist canvases of the 1950s. Summer Table, moreover, is not a “pure” abstraction. Like the work of Ellsworth Kelly, it is based on an observation—in this case, Marden’s recollection of a table he saw on the Greek island of Hydra, set out with glasses of lemonade and Coca-Cola, as well as the colors of the surrounding garden and sea. As the work progressed, the formal aspects of the panels took over, creating stronger colors with a visually tense interplay between the bright central panel and its flanks.