On the Hudson River, where the village of Athens meets the water, a parking lot has been remade into something more alive. Garden for Brice, a public garden slated to open this month, transforms the site into a riverfront landscape of stone, native plants, and open space—less a tribute than a place shaped by the artist it honors.
Brice Marden, who died in 2023, was one of the most influential American painters of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, known for work that bridged Minimalism and a more lyrical, gestural abstraction. He moved from luminous, layered monochromes to the calligraphic, interlacing forms of his later years—always informed by attention to water, rock, and light. His work is held in major museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate, and the Art Institute of Chicago. This fall the Gagosian gallery will present a comprehensive survey of his paintings at its West 21st Street space in New York City.
Beginning in 1971, Marden and his wife, the painter Helen Marden, spent summers on the Greek island of Hydra, where the intense light, rocky landscape, and unique architecture became central to his practice. That sensibility has been carried into...