Lot 26 : Mark Rothko (1903-1970)

Mark Rothko - 1903-1970

Auction Location: United States of America - 2006
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Artist or Maker:

Mark Rothko (1903-1970)

Title:

Untitled

Description:

Untitled
acrylic on paper mounted on panel
33 1/2 x 25 3/4 in. (85.1 x 64.5 cm.)
Painted in 1968.

Provenance:

Marlborough Gallery, New York
Collection of Kate Rothko Prizel, New York
Galerie Beyeler, Basel
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Exhibited:

Basel, Galerie Beyeler, Mark Rothko: Works on Paper 1930-1960, June-August 2005, no. 51 (illustrated in color).

Notes:

Untitled is a glorious example of his vividly colored abstractions, which are the most sought after in the artist's oeuvre. In his paintings on paper, the artist was able to exquisitely nuance every inch of the surface, and indeed, Untitled has an intensity of detail and focus that is only possible on this scale. Alive with painterly flourishes, the feathered edges of the floating rectangles create a delicate frisson with the background. The luminous golden forms lend the work an icon like presence, an association that the artist embraced.

"Rothko loved the Byzantine. I like to think he had encountered a wonderful inscription (an astounding inscription, really) in the Archiepiscopal Chapel at Ravenna: The light is either born here, or, imprisoned, reigns here in freedom. Aut lux nata est aut capta hic libera regna. Paradox and splendor--the two poles that border his life's work--are here summed up. Rothko more than any artist I have known succumbed to the lure of light, light that, as the Byzantine inscriptionist said, can be contained but never captured really; light that envelops us and is all things that we are not. In moving toward this ineffable beacon it was natural enough that Rothko should find his way in the light of paper, that most subtle of light-reflecting bearers, and that his works on paper should be as integral a part of his total vision as his easel paintings and murals. It was almost certainly his experience with the paradoxical nature of paper--absorbing and reflecting at the same time-that set him on his course to the great clearing away that his life's work represents." (D. Ashton, "Introduction," in B. Clearwater, Mark Rothko Works on Paper, exh. cat., New York, 1984, p.9).

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Please note that this work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné being prepared by the National Gallery.