Lot Essay
"Yale Norfolk was considered to be a trial ground for students intending to go on to study for the MFA at Yale University's School of Art and Architecture, where Marden enrolled in the autumn of 1961. Among his tutors at Yale University were Esteban Vicente, Alex Katz, whose teaching Marden valued very highly and, in printmaking, Gabor Peterdi with whom he studied etching exclusively. Peterdi's own approach to printmaking had little impact on Marden, who rejected his tutor's devotion to color printing and his interest in Surrealistic abstraction, but the printmaking course was compulsory and he was able to learn from Peterdi a considerable amount of technical knowledge and sophistication. He would spend on average one day per week in the printmaking studio along with his fellow students Chuck Close, Richard Serra, Robert Mangold and Nancy Graves. Under the direction of Josef Albers, Yale was undoubtedly the pre-eminent art school in the early sixties." (Jeremy Lewison, Brice Marden Prints 1961-1991: A Catalogue Raisonné, p. 13)