Reading the title you either know the name or you don’t. Mark Rothko was an American artist in the 1900’s. He made some amazing artworks and lived a very interesting life. If you want to know more about who Mark Rothko was, what he did and where you can see some of his work, keep on reading.

Mark Rothko

Markus Rothkowitz – also known as Mark Rothko – was a representative of abstract expressionism. The work he made was also known as ‘colourfield storming’. Mark Rothko was born in 1903 in Dvinsk, Latavia and sadly passed away in 1970 in New York. His family emigrated from Latvia to America in 1913. He went to university – Yale – from 1921 to 1923 and eventually left to go to New York. There he went to the Art Students League of New York. After a few years he himself became a teacher – from 1929 to 1952 – at the Center Academy in Brooklyn, New York.

Rothko lived a very eventful life, he got married twice and had two kids! When he divorced from his second wife, he ended up living in his atelier. That’s also where he was found dead on February 25th 1970. Rothko decided he didn’t want to live anymore and took his own life by both, taking an overdose on antidepressants and also cutting his own wrists. He passed away at 67 years old, and left behind incredible art works to be remembered by.

What is colourfield storming

Colourfield storming – also called colourfield painting – is the name of a form of art using big coloured areas. This form of art usually gives a very calming and almost meditative mood to whomever is looking at it. This is because there isn’t too much going on, there’s no objects or people involved, just big areas of the same colour. Mark Rothko created this technique in 1947, he explained it as ‘Wanting to show difficult thoughts in a simple way.”

Where can you see his work

One of the places you can admire his work is an Amsterdam museum called the ‘Moco Museum’, they have one of his artworks on display. The painting they have in their museum is called ‘Black Blue Painting’. The painting is actually really simple and there is not much to look at. It’s exactly what the name says, black and blue on a canvas. The fact that the painting looks like that, does in fact prove that Rothko his work was meant to be soothing, the Blue Black Painting does exactly that.