American painter of the abstract
expressionist school, who was a pioneer of color-field painting (see Abstract
Expressionism). He was born Marcus Rothkovich in Dvinsk, Russia (now Daugavpils,
Latvia), and was brought to the United States in 1913. He later attended
Yale University and studied briefly at the Art Students League in New
York City but was largely self-taught as an artist. He had his first one-man
show in New York City in 1933. Rothko's work in the 1930s belonged to
the social realist movement. In the 1940s, influenced by surrealism, he
developed a more imaginative approach-as in Baptismal Scene (1945, Whitney
Museum, New York City). Gradually his work became nonobjective, consisting
of large, hazily defined rectangles of color-murky, delicate, or glowing-used
to convey emotion and a sense of the spiritual. These pieces belong to
the color-field branch of abstract expressionism, and examples include
Number 10 (1950, Museum of Modern Art, New York City) and Four Darks in
Red (1958, Whitney Museum). An important late work is a series of somber,
contemplative murals painted between 1967 and 1969 in a nondenominational
chapel in Houston, Texas-called, after his death, the Rothko Chapel.
For several years after his death, Rothko's estate was the subject of
legal dispute. His executors were accused of selling his works to Marlborough
Galleries, New York City, at prices disadvantageous to his heirs. In 1975
a Manhattan surrogate court removed the executors, fining them and the
gallery $9,252,000. |