Abstract Expressionism  ·  1903–1970

Mark
Rothko

Daugavpils, Latvia → New York City

Pioneer of Color Field painting. Rothko's luminous rectangles of color invite meditation, grief, and transcendence — dissolving the boundary between canvas and consciousness.

“I'm not an abstractionist. I'm not interested in the relationship of color or form or anything else. I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions.”
Orange and Yellow, Mark Rothko, 1956

Painting as
Emotional Architecture

Born Marcus Rothkowitz in 1903 in what is now Latvia, Rothko emigrated to the United States at age ten. After years in Portland and then New York, he immersed himself in the city's radical art scene — moving through figuration, mythology, and Surrealism before arriving at his signature language.

By the late 1940s, Rothko had stripped his canvases to pure color — vast, soft-edged rectangles that seem to breathe and glow from within. He insisted his paintings were not about color relationships but about “tragedy, ecstasy, doom.”

836+
Known Works
67
Years of Life
40+
Years Painting

Selected Works

The Color Field Paintings

Black on Maroon, Mark Rothko, 1958
Black on Maroon
1958  ·  Seagram Murals
Untitled Seagram Mural, Mark Rothko, National Gallery
Untitled (Seagram Mural)
1959  ·  National Gallery of Art
Number 14, Mark Rothko
Number 14
1960  ·  San Francisco MoMA

In His Own Words

“A painting is not a picture of an experience. It is an experience.”
— Mark Rothko
“The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them. And if you, as you say, are moved only by their color relationships, then you miss the point.”
— Rothko, 1957
“Silence is so accurate.”
— Mark Rothko

Life & Career

A Chronology

1903
Born Marcus Rothkowitz on September 25 in Dvinsk, Russian Empire (now Daugavpils, Latvia).
1913
Immigrates with his family to Portland, Oregon. Learns English rapidly and excels academically, winning a scholarship to Yale University.
1923
Drops out of Yale and moves to New York City, where he stumbles into the Art Students League and discovers painting.
1929–1947
Teaches art to children at a Brooklyn Jewish center. Works through figurative and mythological phases, deeply influenced by Nietzsche and Greek tragedy.
1949
Arrives at his mature Color Field style — large, softly-edged rectangles of pure color on monumental canvases. The first great works emerge.
1958–1959
Commissioned for the Four Seasons restaurant in New York's Seagram Building. He eventually withdraws the paintings, unable to reconcile luxurious dining with the emotional gravity he intended. The murals go to the Tate Modern.
1964
Commissioned to create a series of works for a non-denominational chapel in Houston, Texas — the Rothko Chapel, consecrated in 1971. Fourteen large dark paintings fill an octagonal room, creating one of the most sacred contemplative spaces in modern art.
1970
Mark Rothko dies in his New York studio on February 25. He leaves behind a body of work that transforms how we understand color, silence, and the sacred in modern life.

Where to See His Work

Major Collections

Houston, TX
Rothko Chapel
Fourteen vast dark paintings fill an octagonal sanctuary. A non-denominational space for meditation and human rights — his ultimate statement.
London, UK
Tate Modern
Home to the Seagram Murals — the series Rothko withdrew from the Four Seasons restaurant and donated to the Tate before his death.
Washington, D.C.
National Gallery of Art
Houses major works spanning Rothko's career, including key pieces from the transitional multiform period and his mature Color Field works.
New York, NY
Museum of Modern Art
MoMA holds a defining collection of Rothko's paintings, including landmark Color Field works from the late 1950s and 1960s.
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