Mark Rothko

Mark Rothko, original name Marcus Rothkovitch (born Sept. 25, 1903, Dvinsk, Russia—died Feb. 25, 1970, New York City, N.Y., U.S.), was an American painter, belonging to the Abstract Expressionist school. His use of colour as the sole means of expression led to the development of Colour Field Painting. In 1913 Rothko’s family emigrated from Russia to the U.S., where they settled in Portland, Ore. He studied at Yale University in 1921, intending to become a labour leader, but dropped out after two years and traveled around the U.S. He moved to New York City in 1925 and started to paint. Although he studied briefly under the painter Max Weber, he was essentially self-taught. Initially working in realistic style in the 1930s and a semi-abstract style in the early 1940s, he began develop a personal form of Abstract Expressionism. In his paintings he juxtaposed parallel to the picture plane large areas of melting colors. Rothko spent the rest of his life refining this basic style through continuous simplification. From 1958 to 1966 Rothko worked on a series of 14 immense canvases which were placed in a chapel in Houston, Texas, called, after his death, the Rothko Chapel. Plagued by ill health and the conviction that he had been forgotten by those artists who had learned most from his painting, he committed suicide. After his death, the execution of Rothko’s will provoked one of the most spectacular and complex court cases in the history of modern art, lasting for 11 years (1972–82).