Mark Rothko

Overview

Mark Rothko; Untitled [Street scene with walking man]; 1998ARTstor is actively collaborating with a wide range of living artists and estates of modern artists. The Rothko Family Collection is contributing over 300 images for distribution in ARTstor, many of which depict works by Mark Rothko that have not been previously published. Approximately half of the collection will consist of Rothko’s paintings on canvas, while the remainder will represent his works on paper. These digital images were created from high-quality color transparences, originally produced for the Mark Rothko catalogue raisonné. The Family will also provide cataloging information for these digitized images.

Mark Rothko (1903–1970) was born Marcus Rothkovitch in Dvinsk, Russia (now Daugavpils, Latvia), later emigrating with his family to Portland, OR in 1913. After attending Yale University from 1921–1923, Rothko moved to New York and joined the Art Student’s League to study under Max Weber. During his early career, Rothko worked in a figurative style, which became increasingly symbolic as he was influenced by the Surrealists during the mid-1940s. Over time, the rectangular layers that served as backdrops for his surrealist biomorphic forms would come to the foreground, as Rothko adapted his technique to dilute his pigments and apply them to the canvas in thin, overlapping washes of luminous color. By 1947, Rothko had eliminated all figurative elements from his work, creating non-objective compositions that relied solely on shape and color to convey moods and emotional states. These transitional “multi-form” works eventually led to Rothko’s mature, abstract style, as he further simplified his compositions to include only two to four floating rectangles against a colored ground. After 1950, Rothko’s signature style would remain consistent, even as his palette darkened dramatically over the course of his later career. The collection is currently in production, and the images to be released in ARTstor will span Rothko’s entire career. An initial release of Rothko’s paintings on canvas is already available in ARTstor, including examples of his early figurative style, as well as mature works from the late 1940s through the 1960s.

Go to the top of the page

Collection information

Total size of collection* 347
Percentage of completion 24%
Search terms rothko estate

* Image totals should be regarded as an approximation until a given collection is 100% complete. Users should also bear in mind that the number of images available to them may vary from country to country, reflecting ARTstor’s approach to addressing an international copyright landscape that itself varies from country to country.

Last updated: May 19, 2008

<

Image Credits

Mark Rothko; Untitled [Street scene with walking man]; Copyright © 1998 (works on canvas) / 2006 (works on paper) by Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko; National Gallery of Art