Attributed to Mark Rothko, it does not have a COA. Medium: acrylic board. Provenance: private owner.

Biography: Born in Dvinsk, Russia with the name of Marcus Rothkovich, Mark Rothko became a leading Abstract Expressionist painter, using the rectangle of large-scale canvases for a one-color ground, visible along the edge and through occasional openings, showing three or four horizontal blocks of color with brushed surfaces and fuzzy borders.He used thinned oil paint in many layers, achieving the effect of watercolor which he had used so often before. He created simple, flat shapes which, for him, showed a relationship between primitive art and myths cast into working through his own personal experiences. His work expressed drama and violence, suggesting both serenity and conflict.As a child, Mark Rothko spoke Hebrew and Russian until he was ten years old, and in 1913, emigrated to Portland, Oregon with his two sisters. All wore labels explaining they did not speak English, and he enrolled in Immigrant School. Feeling much isolated, he created his own private world of psychological space, and the exploration of that space became an obsession.In 1921, Rothko enrolled in Yale University, and by that time was already receiving attention as an artist. In 1925, he went to New York City where he studied at the Art Students League with Max Weber. He was much influenced by Milton Avery, who made simple paintings, and also by the work of Pierre Matisse.In 1935, he along with Adolf Gottlieb, co-founded "The Ten," artists that espoused expressionist or emotive styles as opposed to abstract artists removed from emotional content.In the late 1940s, he taught at the California School of Fine Arts and became a significant influence for Abstract Expressionism on the West Coast. He also did mural work including for New York restaurants, the Harvard University Holyoke Center, and a set of fourteen religious panels in the Rothko Chapel for the Texas Medical Center in Houston.Early in his career, Rothko painted isolated urban figures and then experimented with automatic drawing, a surrealist technique to express personal feelings. Deeply interested in the collective and individual unconscious, he studied mythology, Freud, and Jung, seeking universal symbols. By the mid 1940s, horizontal bands appeared in his work, and then he discarded all direct references to nature and worked with simplified shapes, color gradations, and value relationships. In 1970, he committed suicide.

All authorship of items in this catalog are described according to the following terms:

Signed [Artist Name] : In cases in which the signature is legible in the lot, this work is described as-is with no attributions given.

By [Artist Name] : The work is by the artist.

Attributed to [Artist Name] : The work may be ascribed to the artist on the basis of style, but there may be some question as to actual authorship.

In the manner of [Artist Name] : The work was executed by an unknown hand, but was designed deliberately to emulate the style of the artist.

After [Artist Name] : The work was executed by an unknown hand, but is a deliberate copy of a known work by the artist.

Circle of [Artist Name] : A work of the period of the artist showing his influence, closely associated with the artist but not necessarily his pupil.

Follower of [Artist Name]: A work by a pupil or a follower of the artist (not necessarily a pupil).

American, 19th century: This work was executed by an unknown hand, and can only be identified by origin (i.e., region, period).

Mint

43 x 23 in