Mark RothkoAmerican Painter

By Kate Kerrigan

Who was Mark Rothko• He was born in Dvinsk,

Russia in 1903• Moved to Oregon in

1913• He was Jewish• Jews were not

accepted in Russia at this time

• Committed suicide in 1970

Important Personal Events

• Never finished college• When to art school at Art Student’s

League in New York• First started painting with Max Weber

and Adolph Gottlieb• They founded a school for one year• Then it became a club, called Ten, for

artists who were sympathetic to abstract and expressionist art

Important Historical Events• He had a job during the

Great Depression as a mural artist, later helping him with large-scale formats and broad flat areas of color

• Lived as a Jew during WWII, and was part of the abstract expressionist movement that happened after WWII

Unemployment line

D Day, when the U.S. invadedGerman land at the end of WWII

Stylistic Traits

• He went through many different art phases, but his most well known are his abstract paintings

• Oil paint• Bordered• Smudged colors, especially near

edges• Asymmetry/unbalanced• Layers the paint• All colors in the same color tone• Uses rectangles

Example

• Border• Smudged

colors near edge

• All colors are in the same tone

• Rectangles

Orange and Yellow by Mark Rothko (1956)

Example• Layers the paint• Border• Asymmetry• Smudged• Rectangles

Mark Rothko, Red, Orange, Tan and Purple, 1954.

The End

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