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Lot Essay
In late 1967, after three years of intense and exhausting work, Rothko finally completed the most important project of his life; the mural installation for the Menil Chapel in Houston. In contrast to these vast and largely monochromatic black oil paintings, Rothko deliberately began to paint on a smaller scale and with the new and more immediate medium of acrylics.
A few months later, in the spring of 1968, the 65 year-old artist suffered a massive aneurysm to his aorta and after his recovery was advised by his doctors never to work with the more strenuous medium of oils or on paintings of over 40'' in height again. In response to these restrictive conditions, in the summer of that year Rothko began to fully explore the new acrylic medium in a series of paintings executed on paper which he later laid down on panel or canvas for the purpose of preservation. Untitled of 1968 is an impressive and commanding example from this dramatic and important late series of acrylic paintings.
The new paintings were in many ways a re-exploration of the profound depths of feeling Rothko had immersed himself in for the Houston Chapel murals. His central theme then had been the Passion of Christ, the finality of death and the reality of the human spirit. Working over the summer after his own recent brush with death and with its constant threat still hanging over him, this heavy drinking, heavy smoking, hypochondriac painter who throughout his life had sought an art of transcendence, devoted himself to his work like never before. Seeking both solace and meaning from his art, Rothko's late works seek to emulate the great tragedies of his literary heroes Aeshyllus and Shakespeare. Sombre, heavy colours predominate in most, drawing out the cathartic dionysian forces of elemental nature and confining them within the picture plane in such a way that each work conjurs a sense of monumental emotion compressed into a small and unremarkable human scale.
Working on several paintings at one time by taping each work against a large plywood backboard that served as an easel, the sombre intensity of Rothko's acrylics is clearly representative of the tragic conditions of the artist's life at this time. As his biographer James Breslin has pointed out, since the spring of 1968 Rothko had experienced a series of losses. He had separated from his wife and children, left his home to live in his studio while his recent aneurysm had robbed him of his sexual potency, and prompted his doctors to insist he stick to strict diet and abstain from drinking and smoking. Largely ignoring his doctor's advice his friend Stanly Kunitz recalled that Rothko began to move "out of the world in general. He became solely self-preoccupied. That was one of the after effects of the aneurysm, and I think he was rejecting family, Mell (his wife) and the children and everything except art." (cited in Mark Rothko; A Biography James E. B. Breslin, Chicago 1993, p. 505.)
Art must have seemed at times to represent the sole pleasure he had left and, as Dore Ashton - one of very few critics whom Rothko respected - recalled about a visit she made to his studio in the spring of 1969, Rothko was immensely proud of his latest work. Showing her the acrylics he had painted in the summer of 1968, she recalled that "He named the exact number with pride, as though to say, 'with all my trouble, I was able to do this.' Many are very haunting. Some directly expressive of a sinking heart. Many blacks over purple, or blacks over brown in a more decisive, almost incisive line dividing the weights. He sees them as very different and asked if they surprised me. I see them as consequent to the murals." (cited in Ibid p. 511)
In Untitled Rothko has used a sponge and a brush to create three heavy dark forms that, like the series of panels in the Houston Chapel, inter-relate in a progression of sombre resonant colour. Compressed together the blurred edges of each form create a homogenous and cohesive material entity that strikes a deep sonic chord in the heart of the viewer; a powerful resonating and repeated sound, like that of a bell tolling. Rothko's use of rich dark colours in this work may also owe something to the influence of Ad Reinhardt, whose monochromatic black paintings from 1960 until his death in 1967, were also a significant influence on Rothko's late work. "I should have painted them", Rothko once told the artist's widow Rita Reinhardt, with whom in 1969 he began an affair. "The difference between me and Reinhardt", Rothko asserted however, "is that he's a mystic. By that I mean that his paintings are immaterial. Mine are here. Materially. The surfaces, the work of the brush and so on." (Ibid p. 529.)
It is essentially this material presence that so distinguishes Rothko's late acrylics. Using the thick and heavy matt quality of the acrylic paint to create a convincing degree of presence and permanence and using broad sweeps of the brush and sponge throughout to create a radiant and shimmering edge to his forms, Rothko has created in Untitled a profoundly physical image of transcendent reality and emotive power. Rothko asserted as early as 1958 that his paintings reflected his own growing preoccupation with death. Untitled is no exception. Its strong and solid arrangements of rich dark colour combine with the warm purple of the background to create a work that, almost in spite of itself, speaks of the grandeur and nobility but also the ultimate insignificance of human existence.
A few months later, in the spring of 1968, the 65 year-old artist suffered a massive aneurysm to his aorta and after his recovery was advised by his doctors never to work with the more strenuous medium of oils or on paintings of over 40'' in height again. In response to these restrictive conditions, in the summer of that year Rothko began to fully explore the new acrylic medium in a series of paintings executed on paper which he later laid down on panel or canvas for the purpose of preservation. Untitled of 1968 is an impressive and commanding example from this dramatic and important late series of acrylic paintings.
The new paintings were in many ways a re-exploration of the profound depths of feeling Rothko had immersed himself in for the Houston Chapel murals. His central theme then had been the Passion of Christ, the finality of death and the reality of the human spirit. Working over the summer after his own recent brush with death and with its constant threat still hanging over him, this heavy drinking, heavy smoking, hypochondriac painter who throughout his life had sought an art of transcendence, devoted himself to his work like never before. Seeking both solace and meaning from his art, Rothko's late works seek to emulate the great tragedies of his literary heroes Aeshyllus and Shakespeare. Sombre, heavy colours predominate in most, drawing out the cathartic dionysian forces of elemental nature and confining them within the picture plane in such a way that each work conjurs a sense of monumental emotion compressed into a small and unremarkable human scale.
Working on several paintings at one time by taping each work against a large plywood backboard that served as an easel, the sombre intensity of Rothko's acrylics is clearly representative of the tragic conditions of the artist's life at this time. As his biographer James Breslin has pointed out, since the spring of 1968 Rothko had experienced a series of losses. He had separated from his wife and children, left his home to live in his studio while his recent aneurysm had robbed him of his sexual potency, and prompted his doctors to insist he stick to strict diet and abstain from drinking and smoking. Largely ignoring his doctor's advice his friend Stanly Kunitz recalled that Rothko began to move "out of the world in general. He became solely self-preoccupied. That was one of the after effects of the aneurysm, and I think he was rejecting family, Mell (his wife) and the children and everything except art." (cited in Mark Rothko; A Biography James E. B. Breslin, Chicago 1993, p. 505.)
Art must have seemed at times to represent the sole pleasure he had left and, as Dore Ashton - one of very few critics whom Rothko respected - recalled about a visit she made to his studio in the spring of 1969, Rothko was immensely proud of his latest work. Showing her the acrylics he had painted in the summer of 1968, she recalled that "He named the exact number with pride, as though to say, 'with all my trouble, I was able to do this.' Many are very haunting. Some directly expressive of a sinking heart. Many blacks over purple, or blacks over brown in a more decisive, almost incisive line dividing the weights. He sees them as very different and asked if they surprised me. I see them as consequent to the murals." (cited in Ibid p. 511)
In Untitled Rothko has used a sponge and a brush to create three heavy dark forms that, like the series of panels in the Houston Chapel, inter-relate in a progression of sombre resonant colour. Compressed together the blurred edges of each form create a homogenous and cohesive material entity that strikes a deep sonic chord in the heart of the viewer; a powerful resonating and repeated sound, like that of a bell tolling. Rothko's use of rich dark colours in this work may also owe something to the influence of Ad Reinhardt, whose monochromatic black paintings from 1960 until his death in 1967, were also a significant influence on Rothko's late work. "I should have painted them", Rothko once told the artist's widow Rita Reinhardt, with whom in 1969 he began an affair. "The difference between me and Reinhardt", Rothko asserted however, "is that he's a mystic. By that I mean that his paintings are immaterial. Mine are here. Materially. The surfaces, the work of the brush and so on." (Ibid p. 529.)
It is essentially this material presence that so distinguishes Rothko's late acrylics. Using the thick and heavy matt quality of the acrylic paint to create a convincing degree of presence and permanence and using broad sweeps of the brush and sponge throughout to create a radiant and shimmering edge to his forms, Rothko has created in Untitled a profoundly physical image of transcendent reality and emotive power. Rothko asserted as early as 1958 that his paintings reflected his own growing preoccupation with death. Untitled is no exception. Its strong and solid arrangements of rich dark colour combine with the warm purple of the background to create a work that, almost in spite of itself, speaks of the grandeur and nobility but also the ultimate insignificance of human existence.