Mark Rothko
Biography
Mark Rothko was one of the leading members of the New York School of Abstract painters. He is best known for his meditative pieces featuring large, luminous blocks of color. Rothko’s early paintings, featuring urban scenes, landscapes, and figurative works with rough applications of paint.
In the mid-1930s, he joined the Ten, a New York circle made up of many Modernist painters that would shape abstract painting in America which included: Ben-Zion, Ilya Bolotowsky, Adolph Gottlieb, Louis Harris, Ralph Rosenborg, Louis Schanker, Nahum Tschacbasov, Joseph Solman, and Jack Kufeld.
In the late 1940s and 1950s, he painted the works he is best known for: blocks of color in luminous washes. Towards the 1960s, his works often assumed darker hues with rich, textured layers. Rothko spent several years concentrating on works for a chapel in Houston, reinforcing his unwavering belief in the spiritual and emotional qualities of Abstract Art.
Rothko, who suffered from depression, took his own life in 1970; at that point, he had held a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and was fully recognized as a leading American abstractionist.
Born: 1903
Died: 1970
Education: Yale University, Art Student’s League
Exhibitions
Select Exhibitions
2021
The Rothko Room, KATONAH MUSEUM OF ART KATONAH | NEW YORK | USA
Rothko 1968: Clearing Away, PACE LONDON MAYFAIR | LONDON | UK
The Rothko Room, KATONAH MUSEUM OF ART KATONAH | NEW YORK | USA
2020
Rothko: Untitled, KATONAH MUSEUM OF ART KATONAH | NEW YORK | USA
2019
Mark Rothko, KUNSTHISTORISCHES MUSEUM, VIENNA VIENNA | AUSTRIA
2017
Rothko: Reflection, MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON BACK BAY | BOSTON | MASSACHUSETTS | USA
2016
Rothko: Dark Palette, Pace Gallery, New York, NY
2015
Mark Rothko: A Retrospective, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
Mark Rothko Exhibition, Seoul Arts Center, Hangaram Art Museum, South Korea
2014
Rothko’s Harvard Murals, Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge, MA
Rothko, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Netherlands
Tragic and Timeless: The Art of Mark Rothko, Saint Louis Art Museum, MO
Rothko: The Watercolors 1941–1947, Pace Gallery, New York, NY
2012
Rothko: The Decisive Decade, 1940–1950, Columbia Museum of Art, South Carolina, September 14, 2012–January 6, 1913. Travels to: Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio, February 1–May 26, 2013; as Figure to Field: Mark Rothko in the 1940s, Denver Art Museum, June 23–September 29, 2013; as Mark Rothko in the 1940s: The Decisive Decade, Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, October 25, 2012–February 9, 2014.
Rothko, Portland Art Museum, OR
Rothko: Selections from the National Gallery of Art, Academy Art Museum, Easton, ML
2011
Rothko: Seagram Murals, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Rothko: Perceptions of Being, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA
Rothko in Britain, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK
2010
Rothko, Into an Unknown World: 1949–1969, Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture, Moscow, Russia
In the Tower: Mark Rothko, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
2008–2009
Sept. 26 – Feb. 1, “ROTHKO”, Tate Modern, London, England
2003–2007
Oct. 12 – Aug. 12, “Mark Rothko, The Mural Projects”, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
1987
Tate Gallery, London, England (solo)
1984
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (toured the United States, 1984-86) (solo)
1981
Pace Gallery, New York, NY (solo)
1978
Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY (solo)
Pace Gallery, New York, NY (solo)
1977
Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna, Mantua, Italy (solo)
1975
Cleveland Museum of Art (with Milton Avery and Jon Schueler)
1974
Newport Harbour Art Museum, Newport Beach, CA(solo)
1972
Hayward Gallery, London, England (solo)
1971
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT (solo)
1970
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (solo)
1965
Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, Italy (solo)
1963
Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY (solo)
1961
Solo exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
1958
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, NY (solo)
1957
Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX (solo)
1954
Art Institute of Chicago (travelled to the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence) (solo)
1951
Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, NY (solo)
1946
Mortimer Brandt Gallery, New York, NY (solo)
San Francisco Museum of Art (travelled to the Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California) (solo)
1945
Peggy Guggenheim gave Rothko a solo show at Art of This Century in New York
1940
Neumann-Willard Gallery, New York, NY (with Marcel Gromaire and Joseph Solman) (solo)
1933
First solo show took place at the Portland Art Museum
1933
First solo exhibition in New York at the Contemporary Arts Gallery
1928
First group exhibition at the Opportunity Galleries, New York, NY