Mark Rothko Oil Paintings

Mark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz (September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Russian-born American painter. Mark Rothko oil paintings are simple yet passionate creations that transcend above the canvas and transport imagination. Mark Rothko oil paintings display a unique style with broad color fields to denote moods and places. Rothko developed this unique style engaging color and passion yet intentionally leaving out any human representation.

Mark Rothko oil paintings were heavily influenced by Impressionism painting. Mark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkovitz in Russia in 1903, immigrated with his family to Portland Oregon when very young. He attended Yale for two years, and then studied the art, which was later to result in famous Rothko paintings. Lessons in painting came from Art Weber in New York City's Art Students League. The first public presentation of Rothko paintings was at Opportunities Galleries in 1928 in New York City. The first solo showing of Rothko oil paintings was back in Portland Oregon, his home, at the Portland Art Museum in 1933. He later returned to New York for a solo gallery show that same year. Mark Rothko paintings had definitely arrived.

Mark Rothko, unique style has broad color fields to denote moods and places. Similar to Vincent Van Gogh, Henri Matisse, and Joan Miro, Rothko developed this unique style engaging color and passion yet intentionally without any human representation. Today, Rothko is considered among the great pioneers of American postwar art and, as one of the major representatives of Abstract Expressionism painting.

Marcus Rothkowitz born in Dvinsk, Russian in 1903. In 1913 his family resettled in Portland, Oregon and he attended Yale University although did not graduate. He moved to New York and studied at the Art Students League under Max Weber. Rothko was a founding member of Ten, a group of artists sympathetic to the abstract movement. Rothko is considered a seminal figure in the abstract expressionist movement. By the 1940's Rothko had developed his signature style of floating rectangular in blocks of color. In 1945 Peggy Guggenheim gave him a one-man show at Art of this Century in New York. The first solo showing of Rothko paintings was back in Portland Oregon, his home, at the Portland Art Museum in 1933. He later returned to New York for a solo gallery show that same year. Mark Rothko paintings had definitely arrived.

Rothko was given his first one-man exhibition in 1933 at the Museum of Art in Portland. His first in New York exhibition was held a few months later at the Contemporary Arts Gallery and includedlandscapes painting, portraits painting, nudes painting and city scenes. During the 1930s to 1946 Rothko's oil  paintings reflected his interest in Greek mythology and Christian tragedy. He was undoubtedly influenced by the Surrealists Masson. In 1940, Rothko and some colleagues became founding members of the Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors and in 1945 he was given a one-man exhibition at Peggy Guggenheim's gallery Art of This Century featuring his surrealist works.

Rothko was using fields of color in his aquarelles and city scenes, and his subject matter and form at this time had become non-intellectual. Rothko's work matured from representation and mythological subjects into rectangular fields of color and light, that later culminated – or self-destructed – in his final works for the Rothko Chapel. However, between the primitivist and playful urban scenes and aquarelles of the early period, and the late, transcendent fields of color, was a period of transition. It was a rich and complex milieu which included two important events in Rothko’s life: the onset of World War II, and his reading of Friedrich Nietzsche.