Mark Rothko
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Image:Mark rothko 1957 no 20.JPG Mark Rothko (September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970) was a Latvian-born American Jewish painter who is often classified as an abstract expressionist, although he vociferously denied being an abstract painter.
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History
He was born Marcus Rothkowitz in Daugavpils, Latvia (then part of the Russian Empire) and emigrated to Portland, Oregon in 1913. He attended Lincoln High School in Portland, and then Yale University but only for a year.
Artwork
Among the founders of the New York School, his work concentrated on basic emotions, often filling the canvas with very few, but intense colours, using little immediately-apparent detail. In this respect, he can also be considered to presage the Color Field painters, such as Helen Frankenthaler. However, "Rothko repeatedly protested, 'I'm not interested in color' and 'I'm not a colorist.' Color, he explained, was nothing more than an 'instrument' for expressing something larger: the all important 'subjects' of his pictures" (Chave 1989).
Although respected by other artists, Rothko remained in relative obscurity until 1960, supporting himself by teaching art.
In 1958, Rothko was commissioned by architect Philip Johnson to paint a series of murals for the Four Seasons restaurant in the Seagram Building in New York. This substantial project was completed in late 1959. Ultimately, Rothko was not happy having his paintings as the backdrop to gourmet dining as he felt their intensity and contemplative qualities would not suit such surroundings. Having a high regard for the Tate Britain Gallery in London, he gave the set of nine of the maroon and black works to the gallery, where they were on permanent display in an intimate installation using subdued lighting designed by Rothko. The paintings arrived at the Tate Gallery on the same day as the news of Rothko's death. Since the building of the Tate Modern further along the river, they have been moved and featured in a similarly designed gallery set aside solely for Rothko. The subdued lighting and intensity of the paintings create a contemplative atmosphere, allowing visitors to view the works in the way Rothko would have wished.
In 1967, Rothko again collaborated with Johnson on a church in Houston, Texas, contributing 14 related works in an installation setting. The church has subsequently become known as "The Rothko Chapel". Numerous other works are scattered in museums throughout the world.
Rothko, along with other nonrepresentational painters, is alleged to have been favored by the CIA through arts institutions during the 1950s. The support was part of a Cold War campaign to steer global intellectual culture of both left and right away from Communism, on the principle that it would stand little chance of becoming political Agitprop, in contrast to American representational fine art of the time which, descended from arts of the Great Depression, New Deal economic reconstruction, and World War II, frequently had overt social or political agendas. The allegations are controversial in hindsight, but for the implications the campaign has on global intellectual culture [1], rather than for the quality of the research[2].
Suicide and legacy
After a long struggle with depression, Rothko committed suicide by cutting his wrists in his New York studio on February 25, 1970. Additionally the settlement of his estate became the subject of the famous Rothko Case.
In early November, 2005, Rothko's 1953 oil on canvas painting, "Homage to Matisse," broke the record selling price of any post-war painting at US $22.5 million dollars.
A previously unpublished manuscript by Rothko about his philosophies on art, entitled The Artist's Reality, has been edited by his son, Christopher Rothko, and is to be issued by Yale University Press in 2006. [3]
Quotations
"I am not an abstract painter. I am not interested in the relationship between form and colour. The only thing I care about is the expression of man's basic emotions: tragedy, ecstacy, destiny."
"Pictures must be miraculous."
"The progression of a painter's work as it travels in time from point to point, will be toward clarity.. toward the elimination of all obstacles between the painter and the idea.. and the idea and the observer.. To achieve this clarity is inevitably to be understood."
"Since my pictures are large, colorful and unframed, and since museum walls are usually immense and formidable, there is the danger that the pictures relate themselves as decorative areas to the walls. This would be a distortion of their meaning, since the pictures are intimate and intense, and are the opposite of what is decorative."
"The fact that people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I can communicate those basic human emotions.. the people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when painting them. And if you say you are moved only by their color relationships then you miss the point."
References
- Chave, Anne. Mark Rothko, 1903-1970: A Retrospective. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.
- Breslin, J.E.B. Mark Rothko - A Biography, Chicago, London, University of Chicago Press, 1993.
External links
- National Gallery web feature on Mark Rothko includes an overview of Rothko's career, numerous examples of his art, a biography of the artist
- The Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas, is dedicated to Rothko paintings and non-denominational worship
- Mark Rothko's Gravesite
- ArtCyclopedia contains links to galleries and museums with Rothko pieces and articles on Rothko.
- Essay on Mark Rothko - in Examinations Archivesde:Mark Rothko
fr:Mark Rothko it:Mark Rothko nl:Mark Rothko ja:マーク・ロスコ pl:Mark Rothko sv:Mark Rothko