dailyrothko:Mark Rothko died on this day in 1970. His work left an indelible impression on millions
dailyrothko:Mark Rothko died on this day in 1970. His work left an indelible impression on millions of people. His art cast a light in my mind at an early age, which is why I chose to start this blog; so I could have a little Rothko every day to enrich the hours. No matter what we read in books, or see in plays, the real artist is always available to us through their art. To paraphrase Schopenhauer, it is itself the last judgement on it.The New York Times ran his obituary on the front page the next day. Here is the transcription of it:Mark Rothko, a pioneer of abstract expressionist painting who was widely regarded as one of the greatest artists of his generation, was found dead yesterday, his wrists slashed, in his studio at 157 East 69th Street. He was 66 years old. The Chief Medical Examiner’s office listed the death as a suicide.Mr. Rothko had suffered a heart attack last year, and friends said that he had been despondent in recent months.Like most American artists of his generation, Mr. Rothko’s early career was marked by struggle and was untouched by recognition. His fortunes rose with those of the American brand of painting known as abstract expressionism, in whose development he had played a crucial role, along with Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, Adolph Gottlieb and Clyfford Still.Today, Mr. Rothko’s monumental canvases, in which simple rectangles of glowing col or seem to float on the canvas, are known and collected throughout the world. Mr. Rothko’s significance as a painter was underscored by a retrospective exhibition of his works in 1961 at the Museum of Modern Art, which at the time only gave such shows to living painters of worldwide reputation.Yesterday, William S. Rubin, chief curator of painting and sculpture at the museum, said: “The loss to modern art is incalculable. One of the pioneers of abstract expressionism, his work was crucial to the establishment of the whole tradition of recent color‐field painting and continued to pose challenges right up to his death.”His historical importance was prominently reaffirmed this year in two major New York shows: “New York Painting and Sculpture: 1940–1970,” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and “The New American Painting and Sculpture: The First Generation” at the Museum of Modern Art.Mr. Rothko’s quiet, contemplative canvases, often described as “painting about the sublime,” are in strong contrast to the turbulent imagery of most of his contemporaries. The subdued content of Mr. Rothko’s art was described as “empty” by conservative critics; those in favor admire their other‐worldly calm.‘Baffling and Mysterious’In 1957 the London critic Robert Melville wrote of Mr. Rothko’s work: “It is baffling and mysterious in its simplicity, and I know that many people only find it an insult to their intelligence; but if by some miracle Rothko’s attitude to painting were to prevail, we should all be on the way to becoming converts to Zen Buddhism.”Mr. Rothko shared the be lief of his generation that painting was an act of faith. Rothko was not given to public declamation about his work, but he spoke to friends of “trying to project a tragic vision.” And he was concerned about the way that vision was received.“A picture lives by companionship, expanding and quickening in the eyes of the sensitive observer,” he wrote. “It dies by the same token. It is therefore a risky act to send it out into the world. How often it must be permanently impaired by the eyes of the unfeeling and the cruelty of the impotent who would extend their affliction universally.”Described by friends as an essentially melancholy man, Mr Rothko was also a brilliant and witty talker.“His temperament was always Russian and melancholy, even when things were going his way,” said Betty Parsons, a dealer and an old friend and supporter. “But he could make black white, and white black when he spoke. His wit was not at the expense of people, but at the expense of life.”Mr. Rothko’s chief avocational interests were music and friends. “He loved Mozart,” the poet Stanley Kunitz, a close friend, recalled. “And he was a great, loyal, wonderfully affectionate friend.”‘He Felt Rejected’Mr. Kunitz added that the artist’s unproductivity over the last six months had been “part of his depression.” “His friends were all aware of it,” he noted. “And partly it had to do with the art world. He felt that the scene was being occupied by people who were influenced by him — his followers — and yet he felt rejected at the same time. This really consumed him.”Mr. Rothko, whose name was Marcus Rothkovich, was born on Sept. 25, 1903, in Dvinsk, Russia. His father, Jacob, a pharmacist, brought his family to the United States in 1913, and settled in Port land, Ore. Young Rothko, preoccupied with political and societal matters, aspired to be a labor leader.In 1921, he entered Yale, but left the college two years later to “wander around, bum about, starve a bit.” He arrived in New York in 1925, and en rolled in Max Weber’s classes at the Art Students League. The stint with Weber was his only formal training, and Mr. Rothko always considered him self a self‐taught painter.Starting out as a realist, he exhibited in a group show, in 1929 at the Opportunity. Gallery in New York. Later, with many other New York artists hit by the Depression, he worked on the Federal Arts Project in 1936–37.By the 1940’s; his work, which in the previous decade stressed urban themes, began to absorb the surrealist influences of Miro, de Chirico and Max Ernst, artists whom Mr. Rothko greatly admired. In his first important one‐man show at Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century gallery, the surrealistic direction of his work was already apparent.He joined the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1946, and the surrealist iconography soon gave way to completely abstract forms. In 1951 a reviewer for The New York Times wrote of the paintings in his final show at the Betty Parsons Gallery:“They are given no titles and, in the accepted sense of the word, they represent nothing. They are expressions of pure and elementary color‐form relationships.”In 1951, Mr. Rothko showed for the first time at the: Museum of Modern Art, in a now famous exhibition called “Abstract Painting and Sculpture in America.” Later he was rep resented in museum shows that traveled abroad, and he gave Europeans their first exposure to his work.His Work ‘Arrived’The influential Sidney Janis Gallery began to exhibit his work in 1954, thus signaling not only Mr. Rothko’s success but also the “arrival” of the abstract expressionist movement.In 1958, with Mark Tobey, the painter, and David Smith and Seymour Lipton, the sculptors, Mr. Rothko was chosen to represent the United States at the 29th Venice Biennale.Mr. Rothko also had an important teaching career. From 1929 to 1952, he taught children at the Center Academy in Brooklyn, and during the sum mere of 1947 and 1949 he taught at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco, where he became an important influence on a number of California artists.He was co‐founder and teacher in 1948 of the influential school on East Eighth. Street called Subjects of the Artists, a discussion center for the New York School painters. With Adolph Gottlieb, Mr. Rothko once stated his artistic credo in a letter that was published in The New York Times on June 13, 1943.“We favor the simple expression of the, complex thought. We are for the large shape because it has the impact of the unequivocal. We wish to reassert the picture plane. We are for flat forms because they destroy illusion and re veal truth.”Mr. Rothko, who received an honorary degree from Yale last June, is survived by his widow, the former Mary Alice Beistle, a daughter, Kate, and a son, Christopher.He also leaves a sister, Sonia Allen, of Portland, and two brothers, Moise Roth of Port land and Albert Roth of Los Angeles. -- source link