Photo: Mark Rothko, No. 9, 1948, oil and mixed media on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc. © 1998 by Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko
Painter Mark Rothko refused to adhere to any art movement. In 1943, he released a brief manifesto with Adolph Gottlieb, citing, “To us art is an adventure into an unknown work, which can be explored only by those willing to take risks…. We favor the simple expression of the complex thought. We are for the large shape because it has the impact of the unequivocal. We wish to reassert the picture plane. We are for flat forms because they destroy illusion and reveal truth.”
It was in this way that Rothko worked, transforming the canvas into a state of pure experience, until he committed suicide in 1970. His work revealed a deeper essence within, beyond the realm of the pictorial/abstract divide. Rothko revealed, “I’m not an abstractionist. I’m not interested in the relationship of color or form or anything else. I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on.”
Mark Rothko, Street Scene, 1936/1937, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc. © 1998 by Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko
A pantheon of feeling and energy, “Mark Rothko: A Retrospective” is on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, now through January 24, 2016. Showcasing more than 60 paintings drawn from the unrivaled holdings of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the exhibition features what are essentially “Rothko’s Rothkos,” the paintings that the artist held within his own collection at the time of his death.
Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1957, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc. © 1998 by Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko
The exhibition features works from Rothko’s early career, which demonstrated a rapid assimilation of Modernist currents, evolving throughout the 1930s from expressive figure studies and still-life compositions to scenes of urban life. With the rise of Fascism and the outbreak of World War II, Rothko abandoned figurative painting in order to find a new visual language to express the timeless and tragic. Inspired by the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud, and then by the techniques of Surrealists like André Masson and Roberto Matta, Rothko’s work during this period transitions from a preoccupation with literary sources to the abandonment of narrative content for automatic drawing and biomorphic forms.
The years immediately following World War II were critical in Rothko’s artistic development. By 1947, Rothko had eliminated virtually all elements of mythical imagery and Surrealist technique from his work, abandoning conventional titles and embracing a greater breadth of composition and scale while introducing heightened color and more expressive brushwork. Rothko arrived in 1949 at what was to become his signature style: loosely painted, tiered rectangles of luminous color that dominated large vertical canvases.
Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1953, mixed media on canvas,
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc. © 1998 by Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko
From the late 1950s well into the 1960s, Rothko’s work assumed a more somber note, as he favored a darker palette and austere, subdued handling of paint. In 1969 and 1970, Rothko introduced a new “painterliness” in a series of black-and-gray compositions. The exhibition concludes with a brilliant red canvas from 1970, one of the final works of his career.
Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1969, acrylic on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc. © 1998 by Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko
As Rothko presciently observed, “When I was a younger man, art was a lonely thing. No galleries, no collectors, no critics, no money. Yet, it was a golden age, for we all had nothing to lose and a vision to gain. Today it is not quite the same. It is a time of tons of verbiage, activity, consumption. Which condition is better for the world at large I shall not venture to discuss. But I do know, that many of those who are driven to this life are desperately searching for those pockets of silence where we can root and grow. We must all hope we find them.”
“Mark Rothko: A Retrospective” is on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, now through January 24, 2016.
Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer, curator, and brand strategist. There is nothing she adores so much as photography and books. A small part of her wishes she had a proper library, like in the game of Clue. Then she could blaze and write soliloquies to her in and out of print loves.
