Mark Rothko

Noah Goldowsky, New York
Pace Gallery, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above in 1996

Norfolk, Chrysler Museum of Art, 2007 - 2013 (Extended Loan)

Aldo Pellegrini, ed., New Tendencies in Art, New York, 1966, p. 195, illustrated in color (incorrectly titled Red and Black)

This work is in very good condition overall. Please refer to the attached report prepared by Terrence Mahon. *Please note the auction begins at 9:30 am on November 14th.*
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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“I realize that historically the function of painting large pictures is painting something very grandiose and pompous. The reason I paint them, however – I think applies to other painters I know – is precisely because I want to be very intimate and human. To paint a small picture is to place yourself outside your experience, to look upon an experience as a stereopticon view or with a reducing glass…However you paint the larger picture, you are in it. It isn’t something you command.” – Mark Rothko

Revered for his immense, enveloping paintings on canvas, Mark Rothko spent a significant portion of his oeuvre focusing on works on paper, more intimate in scale, yet deeply poignant and carefully constructed. Untitled from 1959, just shy of 30 inches high, draws its viewer in, demanding close inspection and contemplation. Whereas a large Rothko canvas can be imposing and overwhelming to the senses, the present work is perfectly proportioned for personal reflection. Under close inspection, Rothko’s techniques and materials come to light, and the artist’s presence is profoundly felt. Rothko scholar Bonnie Clearwater lauds the artist’s works on paper: “Thus with their symmetry, tidy execution, and minimal gesture, the small works on paper often seem to be more quintessential Rothko than many of his canvases." (Bonnie Clearwater in Mark Rothko: Works on Paper, New York, 1984, p. 39)

In the present work, two amorphous clouds float on the page, separated by a thin, discrete void separating the two. The forms seem weightless, yet are painted with an opaque black pigment. The space around the forms varies in color from warm ambers and ochers to blood red, thickening in density and color towards the end of the sheet. Directly around the black forms, Rothko seems to have left a narrow space where the raw paper is visible, giving an effect of a halo around the black central shapes. Rothko plays with varying densities, from the impenetrable black to the translucent, hazy red margin.

Unlike his Abstract Expressionist colleagues Jackson Pollock and Clyfford Still, Rothko's emphasis did not include the gesture of the artist's hand. He worked to convey themes pervasive to human experience in his pictures without the obfuscating mediation of recognizable images. Even individual brushstrokes and the originating persona they imply are nearly eliminated. To accomplish this goal, Rothko worked incredibly thin layers of paint onto the surface. The thinness was achieved through adding large amounts of turpentine to his oil paint, which when applied to the paper or canvas would stain the surface and fuse with the support. In the works on paper, Rothko would first apply oil paint to the paper and later mount the sheet onto canvas. The thinned oil paint on the paper, as in Untitled, bleeds the warm reddish hues to the edge of the sheet. This thinness belies the laborious process of the paint's application and contributes to the ethereal quality of even the darkest tones. 

As early inspiration, Piet Mondrian's 1940 arrival in New York had a profound impact on the artistic development of Rothko and his milieu. Diane Waldman has pointed out the influence that Mondrian had on Rothko: "His attraction to order, stability, rectilinear structure and balanced asymmetry, his ...need to express a Platonic ideal, a higher spiritual or metaphysical truth through abstract form, are all clearly related to Mondrian's own goals." (Exh. Cat. New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Mark Rothko, 1903-1970: A Retrospective, 1978, p. 53). But Rothko has simplified these ideas until Mondrian's work appears punctilious and hermetic in comparison. In Rothko's paintings, the horizontal and vertical emphasis implies an expansive plane that continues in all directions into a limitless horizon. It is as though the immense universe is opened and accessible through Rothko's intense focus. This simplicity of Rothko's presentation of this grid allows for the soaring weightlessness of the viewer in the presence of Untitled. Rothko's friend Barnett Newman was also interested in the ideas and possibilities developed by Mondrian. Both Rothko and Newman moved from painting surrealistic forms to a simplified allegiance to the underlying organizational tool found in the grid and rectilinear elements. Like Rothko, Newman focused on the simple details provided by the grid as an entree into non-objective painting. The orthogonally oriented works by both artists created an environment to consume and move the viewer via color, composition and scale.

Rothko’s darkened palette of Untitled is often simplistically equated with the increasingly somber mood that characterizes Rothko's last years, before his untimely death in 1970. But far from feelings of angst or distress, the experience of works like Untitled, as well as late works like the Seagrams murals and the Rothko Chapel paintings are regularly characterized as deeply moving and of a highly introspective nature. Untitled from 1959 facilitates meditation that is unhampered by either images or narrative and evokes the elevation of spirit through the materials of form and color that Rothko masters in his work.

Consequently, Untitled can be understood in relation to Ad Reinhardt's Black Paintings. Striking aesthetic similarities include a flat, rather than thick, application of paint accompanied by the dark color palette that both artists often used during the 1960s. Beyond these material concerns is the manner in which both paintings reveal themselves to the viewer who devotes time and attention to experiencing the works. In Reinhardt's works, the cruciform shape attained through subtle mediation of color does not immediately avail itself to the viewer, coming to light only through close study. Similarly, the subtle variations in Untitled are only fully appreciated when careful contemplation is employed in their service. In this work, brightness is subsumed by a deep richness that is heavy with emotion and meaning.