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Mark Rothko Gallery |
Untitled (Orange & Yellow) 1956
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Untitled (Orange & Yellow) 1956
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Number 5 (Number 22)
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Enter Gallery
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Gallery Description
American, 1903 - 1970
Marcus Rothkowitz was born in Dvinsk, Russia, on September 25, 1903. His parents were Jacob and Anna Goldin Rothkowitz. Rothko was raised in a well-educated family. In 1924 he enrolled in the Art Students League. In 1929 Rothko began teaching children at the Center Academy of the Brooklyn Jewish Center, a position he retained for more than twenty years.
From the later 1930s to 1946 Rothko's oil and watercolor paintings reflected his interest in Greek mythology, primitive art, and Christian tragedy.
By 1947 Rothko had eliminated all elements of surrealism or mythic imagery from his works, and non-objective compositions of indeterminate shapes emerged. Within three years he reached his signature format, painting two or three soft-edged, luminescent rectangles, stacked weight less on top of one another, floating horizontally against a ground.
Now a recognized artist of the New York School, he was given, in 1954, a one-man exhibition by the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1958 Rothko accepted his first commission for a series of paintings for the Four Seasons restaurant. He received his second commission for murals in 1961 for the Holyoke Center at Harvard University. From 1964 to 1967 Rothko worked on his third and last commission, a Roman Catholic chapel in Houston, now interdenominational, creating fourteen canvases, numerically corresponding to the Stations of the Cross. From 1968 on, he worked in acrylic on canvas and paper, reducing his palette to brown, gray, and black.
Rothko was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1968. The following year Yale University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree.
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Monday, October, 6 th
2008
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