Mark Rothko: The Complete Story
Mark Rothko took 35,000 dollars to paint murals for the richest restaurant in New York, decided its diners deserved nothing from him, and gave the paintings to the Tate instead. They arrived in London the morning he was found dead in his studio.
He hated being called a colorist, wanted viewers to weep, and got his wish more often than any abstract painter who ever lived.
Rothko at a glance:
Born Marcus Rotkovich in Dvinsk, Russian Empire, in 1903; reached Portland, Oregon, at ten.
Found his format, the floating rectangles, only in 1949, at 46.
Returned the Seagram mural fee and gave nine canvases to the Tate.
The Rothko Chapel in Houston opened in 1971, a year after his death.
Orange, Red, Yellow sold for 86.9 million dollars in 2012.
Dvinsk to Portland to a Yale exit
Marcus Rotkovich was born on September 25, 1903, in Dvinsk, in the Russian Empire, and emigrated at ten to Portland, Oregon, where his father died months after the family reunited.
A scholarship took him to Yale; disgust with its snobbery took him out of it in 1923 without a degree.
In New York he studied under Max Weber, painted subway riders through the 1930s, and myths through the 1940s, arriving at his format only in 1949, at 46.
The format: doors of color
From 1949 the paintings are two or three soft-edged rectangles breathing against a colored ground, big enough that a close viewer stands inside them, which is where Rothko insisted people stand. He said he was not interested in color relationships but in basic human emotions, tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and that people who wept in front of the pictures were meeting what he had put there.
More incredible painter stories
If Mark Rothko pulled you in, you will love these too:
The Seagram refusal
In 1958 he accepted about 35,000 dollars, enormous then, to paint murals for the Four Seasons restaurant in the Seagram Building, and worked through some 30 canvases of maroon and black.
Then he dined there, watched the room perform its wealth, and pulled out, returning the money in 1969 and giving nine murals to the Tate on condition they hang together in their own room.
His dealer said no artist had ever done such a thing at such a price.
The myth of the pretty rectangles
Rothko fought all his life against the decorative reading, refusing to sell to buyers he suspected of wanting wall furniture and darkening his palette as his fame grew.
The late work goes nearly black: the fourteen paintings of the Rothko Chapel in Houston, commissioned by the de Menils, form a windowless octagon closer to liturgy than to design.
Anyone who calls the work simple is invited to sit there for ten minutes.
How to stand in front of a Rothko
Rothko gave exact instructions: hang the paintings low, light them dimly, and stand about eighteen inches away.
At that distance the edges leave your vision and the color becomes weather. That is the intended experience, not the postcard view from across the room.
He said people wept in front of the pictures because they were meeting what he had put there. Museum guards at the Tate and the Phillips confirm it still happens weekly.
The murals that needed darkness, and the ones that got light
His Harvard murals of 1962 were hung in a penthouse dining room with open windows. The red pigment faded so badly the panels were retired in 1979, a ruin caused by sunlight.
In 2014 conservators resurrected them without touching the paint: calibrated projectors now cast the missing color back onto the canvases each day, and switch off at closing. The restoration is made of light.
The estate scandal that changed art law
After his death, three executors and the Marlborough Gallery moved 798 paintings for a fraction of their value. His daughter Kate, then 19, sued.
The 1975 trial removed the executors, fined the gallery, and became the landmark case of American art law. Every artist's estate contract since is written in its shadow.
February 25, 1970
Weakened by an aneurysm, depressed, separated from his wife, Rothko took his own life in his studio on February 25, 1970, at 66.
That same day the Seagram murals reached the Tate, a coincidence neither institution has ever quite absorbed. The chapel opened in Houston a year later.
9 million dollars, and his room at the Phillips Collection in Washington remains the quietest famous room in American art.
The Mark Rothko questions that keep coming up
What is the Rothko Chapel? An octagonal chapel in Houston holding fourteen of his darkest paintings, commissioned by John and Dominique de Menil and opened in 1971, a year after his death.
Why did Rothko return the Seagram money? After dining at the Four Seasons he decided a luxury restaurant was the wrong room for his work, refunded the fee, and eventually gave nine murals to the Tate.
How much is a Rothko worth? Orange, Red, Yellow brought 86.9 million dollars in 2012, and major canvases have sold privately for more.
Where can I see Rothko? The Rothko Chapel in Houston, the Seagram room at Tate Modern, the Rothko Room at the Phillips Collection, and the National Gallery in Washington, which holds the estate's core.
Did Rothko really want people to cry? He said those who wept were having the same religious experience he had painting. He meant it without irony, and designed the viewing conditions to make it possible.
What happened to the Harvard murals? Sunlight destroyed their reds by the 1970s. Since 2014 they are exhibited under compensating projected light, restored optically rather than chemically.
More secrets to unlock
One last fact
The crate carrying the Seagram murals was unloaded at the Tate on February 25, 1970, the day Rothko died. The paintings he rescued from the rich arrived at their public room with the timing of an epitaph.