Fuck Yeah Mark Rothko

An Interview with Rothko's Sister

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 01:40:55 -0500

I recently found this transcript of an interview with Mark Rothko’s sister Sonia Allen. It was conducted by the the Smithsonian Institutions Archives of American Art.

At the time of the interview Ms. Allen was 94 years old. Her answers are somewhat short and as the collection summary on the website states she does not elaborate very much on her answers.

What is interesting about the interview though is that it gives a little insight to anyone interested in learning about the childhood and family life Rothko grew up in. From his sisters answers his family seemed to be incredible supportive of his art and his career.

If you would like to read it just click this link: http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-sonia-allen-13014

It’s a pretty quick read but it is kind of interesting.

Mark Rothko: The Realist YearsOct 31, 2001 - Jan 5,...

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 12:54:15 -0400

Mark Rothko: The Realist Years
Oct 31, 2001 - Jan 5, 2002

“Approximately forty of Mark Rothko’s rarely exhibited Depression-era urban scenes, still lifes and nudes from the 1930s and 1940s will be on view at PaceWildenstein (32 East 57th Street in New York City) from October 31, 2001 through January 5, 2002. Selected from the artist’s estate and public as well as private collections, this exhibition provides the first occasion to view Rothko’s contribution to early American modernism as a precursor to his unprecedented transition into abstraction.”

- Pace Gallery Press Release for Mark Rothko: Realist Years. Oct 31, 2001

Untitled 1946 oil on canvas 99.9 x 69.9 cm (39 5/16 x...

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 12:38:12 -0400

Untitled
1946
oil on canvas
99.9 x 69.9 cm (39 5/16 x 27 1/2 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc.

“Black was a frequent, sometimes imposing presence in Rothko’s early work (nos. 1–9)—from his expressive figures of the 1930s to the surrealist-inspired canvases of the mid-1940s to the abstract “multiforms” of the late 1940s. Interestingly, black did not play a major role in Rothko’s classic works of the 1950s. Thus his dramatic turn to black in 1964, with the black paintings featured in this exhibition (nos. 10–16), was something of a return, but one whose significance remains mysterious.”

- In the Tower: Mark Rothko, a past exhibit at the National Gallery of Art

Untitled (Man with Green Face) Mark Rothko 1934/1935 oil on...

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 02:13:52 -0400

Untitled (Man with Green Face)
Mark Rothko
1934/1935
oil on canvas
71.5 x 60.9 cm (27 11/16 x 23 11/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc.

In The Tower: Mark Rothko Produced by the National Gallery of...

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 15:11:30 -0400

In The Tower: Mark Rothko

Produced by the National Gallery of Art and narrated by Harry Cooper.

The video is a short explaintion of Rothko’s life and how his artistic style developed. I don’t particularly agree with everything in the video. The narrator describes the Segrum Murals as somber and I personally believe they are anything but. He also states that Rothko was moving away from color with the black on black paintings at the end of his career. If that were so then I think the paintings would be white as that is the absence of color.

It’s not a bad video to watch though…its a tad dry but it’s only 8 minuets and filled with pictures of Rothkos art as well as Rothko himself.

Mark Rothko (painter)American, born Russia, 1903 - 1970The...

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 22:16:01 -0400

Mark Rothko (painter)
American, born Russia, 1903 - 1970
The Party, 1938

From the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C

Not Currently on Display

“Some critics have seen these [The Black on Black...

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 02:08:08 -0400

“Some critics have seen these [The Black on Black paintings] paintings as Rothko’s pointed reminder that there was more to his work than lyric color—that his real subject was (as he had declared in 1943) the “tragic and timeless.” Others have seen them as tokens of the illness and depression that began to plague Rothko in the 1960s, even as harbingers of his suicide at the end of the decade.

But does black = tragedy and despair? While it does absorb more light than any other color, it is not just a void. Depending upon the quality of paint and its application, as well as shifting angles of light, the blacks here can look like steel or velvet, silver screens or black holes. Other colors lie in wait under a surface or peek around an edge. But to notice all this takes time: unless we look at the paintings slowly, we will not see what Rothko called their “inner light.”“

- From the National Gallery of Art Website

Rothko in his studio in 1952 Taken by Kay Bell Reynal Copyright...

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 13:30:00 -0400

Rothko in his studio in 1952

Taken by Kay Bell Reynal

Seeing a Rothko

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 00:55:03 -0400

I’ve never really made personal post on this blog and before yesterday I never really thought to. The point of this blog was simply to share Mark Rothko with people who loved his work and people who had never heard of him.

Simply this blog is about Rothko, not me.

But after visiting the Museum of the Art Institute in Chicago (I was visiting a friend up here) I felt I had to share this experience with all of you who read this blog.

I have only ever seen one Rothko in person. It was a color field….a very small one…and it was at the High Museum in Atlanta. I love that painting but it wasn’t the traditional Rothko size where as a viewer you can literally fall into his painting. That was something I had always wanted to see but never had the chance.

On Saturday I saw two of his massive color fields, each one I believe I have posted on this blog at some point. All I can say is that therenis nothing like seeing these paintings up close. The two paintings I had the opportuninty to see are below and I promise the online versions do not do them justice. If you get the chance go see them. You can see the brush strokes and the differences in the shades going on through the blocks of color. The dripping in the opposite direction that it was hung made me laugh. When I left the museum those paintings were all I could think about. I can’t even begin to explain the amount of work I saw Saturday, and while most of it feels like a blur, those few minuets in front of Rothko’s paintings slow down in my memory as if I had spent the entire day staring at those two paintings.

Taken from the The Art Institute of Chicago website

“The Rothko paintings prompted the play,...

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 12:13:58 -0400

“The Rothko paintings prompted the play, screenwriter-playwright Logan told Playbill.com’s Stage to Screens column. “We filmed ‘Sweeney Todd’ at Pinewood, so I was in London for months on end,” Logan said. “I would walk about the city, and I went to the Tate Modern where, at that point, the Rothko Seagram paintings were. I just absolutely fell in love with them, and that’s what led me to write the play. When I thought about the way the colors in the paintings vibrate back and forth, I thought it would be a great two-hander because it sorta represents and mirrors his work. Once I came up with the idea of Rothko and his assistant, everything fell into place.”“

“Red, with Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne, Splashes Onto Broadway” By Adam Hetrick and Kenneth Jones 01 Apr 2010

Mark RothkoUntitled, 1949oil on canvas54-7/8” x...

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 11:21:13 -0400

Mark Rothko
Untitled, 1949

oil on canvas
54-7/8” x 43-7/8” (139.4 cm x 111.4 cm)

‘Red’ Playbill

Sat, 10 Sep 2011 11:57:46 -0400

‘Red’ Playbill

"I thought in a sense the seriousness of his [Rothko] demeanor was because of his inner conflicts and..."

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 01:55:05 -0400

“I thought in a sense the seriousness of his [Rothko] demeanor was because of his inner conflicts and I wonder if this didn’t play apart in his later life, I mean this constant aspect of being unresolved in this life. Whether or not he believed in what he was doing is a question as far as I’m concerned.”

- Sidney Schectman

Gallery owner, involved with the artist group The Ten of which Mark Rothko was a memeber. The quote refers to Rothko’s early works.

Source: Oral history interview with Bernard Braddon and Sidney Paul Schectman, 1981 Oct. 9, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

“I think biographies that try to cover an entire life are...

Sat, 03 Sep 2011 00:54:00 -0400

“I think biographies that try to cover an entire life are dramaturgically unsound, but to find the one instant or the one series of events in a person’s life that might represent the entire life is compelling theatre. It just seemed to me the Seagram murals were so dramatic and such a landmark in his life that this was the way to explore the themes I thought were interesting, which really didn’t have much to do with Mark Rothko. It had more to do with my feelings about art and theatre and mentors and fathers. Mark Rothko became the vessel for things I wanted to explore.”

- John Logan

“It’s like looking into something very deep. You...

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 16:34:11 -0400

“It’s like looking into something very deep. You could fall in.” So says Mad Men’s Ken Cosgrove while looking at the Mark Rothko painting in Bertram Cooper’s office. That’s a reaction the artist would have appreciated, since he described the work from his most famous period — large-format paintings of blurry-edged rectangles in complementary colors — as “intimate and intense.”

Untitled (Violet, Black, Orange, Yellow on White and Red),...

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 02:59:47 -0400

Untitled (Violet, Black, Orange, Yellow on White and Red), 1949

“It is clear that Rothko hoped to harness the grandeur of religious painting. The principles of frontality and iconic imagery in his mature works are common to traditional altarpieces, and both formats have similar dimensions and proportions. Often larger than a human being, Rothko’s canvases inspire the kind of wonder and reverence traditionally associated with monumental religious or landscape painting.”

- Jennifer Blessing From the Guggenheim website

"This world of the imagination is fancy-free and violently opposed to common sense."

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 13:52:25 -0400

“This world of the imagination is fancy-free and violently opposed to common sense.”

- Mark Rothko

Mark Rothko (painter)American, born Russia, 1903 - 1970No. 7,...

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 12:33:53 -0400

Mark Rothko (painter)
American, born Russia, 1903 - 1970
No. 7, 1964

From the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C

Not Currently On Display

“The prospect of death - the tragedy at the heart of his art - moved closer. He was advised that his condition was not necessarily life-threatening, but that he must give up drinking and smoking and produce only small works.

But, Sandler recalled, “Mark did just the opposite. He seemed to fall apart as a person, at least when he was drunk, which he often was. But still, he continued to paint.” Rothko left his wife Mell and family, and seemed terribly isolated and lonely.

He continued to paint, his palette often reduced to a bleak black and grey. On February 25, 1970, he killed himself, cutting his wrists and taking an overdose of anti-depressants. Kuh wondered whether it was success that destroyed Rothko. Another possibility is that he died of doubt that his art could sustain the weight of significance he placed on it.”

From “The Mysterious Tragedy at the Heart of Rothko’s Tranquil Masterpiece” by Martin Gayford. Published by the Telegraph in 2008

Mark RothkoNo. 14, 1951 (Ca. 1949-1951)oil on canvas56-1/2 x...

Sat, 20 Aug 2011 04:15:02 -0400

Mark Rothko
No. 14, 1951 (Ca. 1949-1951)

oil on canvas
56-1/2 x 65” (143.5 x 165.1 cm)

Untitled, 1952–53 “Untitled (1952–53) was featured...

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 11:27:07 -0400

Untitled, 1952–53

“Untitled (1952–53) was featured prominently in a 1954 exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, the first solo exhibition of Rothko’s mature work in a major American museum. The show comprised eight paintings carefully arranged in a relatively compact and low-ceilinged gallery. Hanging freely from the ceiling near the entrance, Untitled established the prevailing tone, receiving visitors with an inescapable frontality that allowed them no refuge in distance.²”

- Jennifer Blessing From the Guggenheim website