Paintings on paper reveal another side of Rothko

Paintings on paper reveal another side of Rothko Enlarge this image toggle caption ShootArt Mobile 1/Copyright © 2023 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko ShootArt Mobile 1/Copyright © 2023 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko It's easy to interpret the large, dark paintings of Mark Rothko's final months as bleak, the work of an artist whose long struggle with ill health and depression ended when he took his own life in 1970. Sponsor Message Enlarge this image toggle caption ShootArt Mobile 1/Copyright © 2023 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko ShootArt Mobile 1/Copyright © 2023 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko "I find them incredibly optimistic," said Pace Gallery founder Arne Glimcher, a friend of Rothko's who was his neighbor in New York. Enlarge this image toggle caption ShootArt Mobile 1/Copyright © 2023 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko ShootArt Mobile 1/Copyright © 2023 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko In his black and gray paintings on paper, as well as a similar series in blacks and browns, Rothko was also investigating the use of a white edge — using masking tape, he created a sort of frame that's absent in other paintings. Enlarge this image toggle caption ShootArt Mobile 1/Copyright © 2023 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko ShootArt Mobile 1/Copyright © 2023 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko "Over the course of the late '40s, Rothko decided that recognizable imagery should be pulverized, that the best way to communicate directly with a viewer was to reduce his compositions to pure color and form," explained Adam Greenhalgh, curator of the show, which travels in May to the National Museum in Oslo for the artist's retrospective in Scandinavia.