Holiday Recommendation Guest Post #10: Tamsin Clark

Brice Marden
Facsimile edition of Brice Marden's notebook made between 1964 and 1967
New York City, USA: Karma, 2015
130 pp. 19 x 11.30 cm, hardcover
Edition of 1500

Brice Marden
Facsimile edition of Brice Marden's notebook Feb 1968 - 
New York City, USA: Karma, 2015
90 pp. 19 x 11.30 cm, hardcover
Edition of 1500


"Mars black, lemon yellow, use muddy white

Don't forget the young blonde in La Dolce Vita. Scenes in country cafe and post orgy on the beach. She is the one Benno calls the "Purity symbol."
Orange green grey


On the back of a hardcover pocket book with those pleasing curved edges are the notes of Brice Marden. They function as the nicest of book blurbs. A recipe for a painting. A sketchy poem. A record of a saucy outing. Notes on notes.

Two facsimiles of Brice Marden's notebooks published by KARMA, New York arrived recently.  You open the cover and there's a scrawled phone number. In the pages that follow you're right there in Brice world. Pasted in bus tokens. Star doodles next to Jean-Luc Godard. The flattened silver foil from a cigarette packet. Passport photos, quotes, business cards, appointments. It's gorgeous to look at.

You imagine the notebook there in the studio and part of the bustle of social city life. The pace is busy and prolific. This rhythm is itself an insight, perhaps unexpected in relation to the monochromatic paintings Marden was making at the time.

Brice's pages are crammed full but the function of a journal and the need to record and hoard still feels potent. Rather than placing it on the bookshelf, I'll carry the little book with me, a reminder to feel as attentive and interested as Brice. "


Sold out from the publishers, but available for 25 Euros at Yvon Lambert, here and at Tender Books, here.



Tamsin Clark is a bookseller, bookmaker and book fancier. She manages Tenderbooks, a shop and exhibition space for artist books in central London. Under the name Setsuko she makes books and bookish design with Richard Bevan. Tamsin and Richard recently published A Zoo for Chris Marker, a collection of images of animals from the Petite Planète series of travel guides by Chris Marker. Tamsin's next book will be about Richard Gere. In 2016 she would like to go book hunting in Japan.