Author Description

This volume is a catalog published to accompany an exhibition of the works, produced in the 1930s, of Russian-born American painter Mark Rothko (1903-1970). Rothko is generally classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter". Early in his career, Rothko worked in a realistic style that culminated in his Subway series of the late 1930s, showing the loneliness of persons in drab urban environments. This exhibition showed a gathering of Rothko's work from the 1930's, a time when he was sifting through many sources, old and new, for inspiration. Traces of Cezanne and Soutine, Renaissance Italy and Reginald Marsh all turn up in the modest-size paintings.