Biography
The American artist Mark Rotko is a world-recognized master of abstract expressionism, standing at the origin of the creation of painting technology of the color field. His legacy, numbering 836 works on canvas, is now rated in tens of millions of dollars and is located in the world's largest collections, including the picture gallery of the race in New York and the Museum of Tissen-Bornemis in Madrid, and the most valuable paintings "Orange, Red, Yellow" paintings are recognized as the most valuables. , "No. 10", "No. 6" ("purple, green and red") and "№1" ("Royal, Red and Blue").Childhood and youth
Mark Rotko, who was previously called Marcus Yakovlevich Rotkovich, was born on September 25, 1903 in the city of Vitebsk province, in the place of which Daugavpils, Administrative and Cultural Center of Latvia is now. The boy received a comprehensive education and learned to speak and read in 3 languages. In the environment where the representatives of Judaist religion were brought up, accusations of religious and political soil often happened, so from an early age Mark with brothers and sisters lived in oppression and fear.
The guy was able to receive education in the traditional Jewish school, and then to protect children from military service in the divisions of the Russian Empire, the family immigrated to the United States. Hardly settled in Portland, Rotkovichi survived the tragedy associated with the death of the breadwinner, and this event made them refuse to make a disadvantaged existence and start their own lives.
As long as the mother and older children mined the means for food, Marcus in 1921 graduated from the secondary school of Lincoln and, mastering the English language, became an active member of the Jewish community and the Adept of policy discussions. Drinking by the problems of the interests of the working people and the rights of women on the use of contraceptives, Rotko was in the center of radical working meetings, where the famous American anarchists Bill Haywood and Emma Goldman appeared.
Feeling calling for art, the young man entered the school of design and listened to the course of lectures of the famous theorist of abstract expressionism Ashil Gorki, who moved to America during the Armenian Genocide in the cities of the Ottoman Empire. After that, Marcus moved to the league of art historian students and fell under the influence of Max Weber, who became famous thanks to the work in the cubism style.
Under the guidance of this talented teacher, Rothko shaped his own view of the painting and realized that the paintings could be used as an instrument of emotional and religious self-expression.
Painting
His canvas, representing the gloomy interiors and scenes from the life of citizens, were well perceived by critics. The exposition of Rotko's paintings were presented in the gallery of contemporary art in New York, and the artist earned the attention of art historians through the use of rich color fields as a protest against the equivalence of literal American painting.
The style characteristic of the work "Bathing, or a scene on the beach" began to change towards the prison, in which the gloomy paints gave way to the wealth of bright colors. In 1936, this method of painting Rotko tried to describe in theoretical work, but the book that told about formal and stylistic innovations was not over and published during the artist's life.
In an effort to go beyond the subjects that had a social and political impact, Mark with followers turned to the space of the human consciousness, which goes beyond the limits of a particular history and culture. And from that moment on, the goal of art for the artist was filling in the inner spiritual void.
Many paintings, written under the influence of this idea, became a rethinking of mythological plots and received the names of "Antigona", "Edip", "victim of infidation" and "Altar Orpheus". However, with time, Rotko stopped calling his own work and limited himself to the numbering or description of the colors used.
It is in such a format of the artist's canvas that were presented in the famous Art Center, belonging to Peggy Guggenheim, and despite sharp criticism, some of them were sold at a price of $ 150-750.
Later, many of the crushed work for 7 years have been demonstrated annually at the Museum of American Art Whitney. The cost of such paintings like "Lavender and Mulberry", "White Center", "Red on Dark Bordeaux" and "Blue, Green, Brown", reached hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Commercial success did not please the artist, and in the mid-1960s, he conceived a new project called the chapel Rotko. Interesting is the fact that the author of the idea, which was the birth of birth, decided to place the room in the Roman Catholic style. As a result, the work created as part of this project was the culmination of creativity over the past 10 years, they can be seen in the photo in catalogs and artistic albums.
Personal life
The company of novice artists Rothko met with the designer of jewelry, Edith Sugar, and in 1933 this cute carefree girl became his wife. In 1937, the spouses broke up and after reconciliation so could not fully establish a personal life. In 1943, the couple finally broke up, the artist was in a long depression, painfully experiencing the occurrence of the gap.
Two years later, Rothko met a new beloved and soon married Mary Alice Bestell, which the common acquaintances were friends in a friendly. Due to its influence, the artist overcame the despondency and wrote abstractions, the most famous of which was the painting "Slow whirl on the edge of the sea".
Subsequently, a couple traveled a lot. During the visit to Europe in 1950, they had a daughter called Kate in honor of the mother of Rotko. But after a disease that caused impotence, the artist divorced with the second spouse and last years lived alone.
Death
In 1968, Rotko began to suffer from attacks of physical weakness, and after examination, the doctors diagnosed the light aneurysm of aorta and made a number of prescriptions that excluded overvoltage and physical exertion. But Mark neglected advice and continued to work, drink and smoke.As a result, he began to suffer from the attacks of depression and on February 25, 1970 she committed suicide. On the day, when the latest work arrived in the chapel of Rotko, the artist's body discovered on the floor of the workshop. After the opening, it turned out that the cause of death was the overdose of barbiturates, which caused the stop of the heart and hemorrhage into the brain.
Paintings
- 1947 - "Yellow, Red and Orange"
- 1949 - "Violet, Black, Orange, Yellow on White and Red"
- 1949 - №3 / №13 ("Magenta, Black, Green On Orange")
- 1950 - "White Center" ("Yellow, Pink and Lavender ON ROSE")
- 1951 - №2 (№7 and №2)
- 1953 - Untitled
- 1953 - №3.
- 1953 - №61 ("RUST AND BLUE")
- 1954 - №1 ("Royal Red and Blue")
- 1956 - Orange and Yellow
- 1959 - "Black On Maroon"
- 1964-1967 - Rotko Chapel
- 1966 - Untitled ("Blue Divided by Blue")