Mark Rothko, No.2 (Yellow Center), 1954
Oil on canvas, 289.5x173.5 cm
© Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art
© Kate Rothko-Prizel & Christopher Rothko
Mark Rothko, No.2 (Yellow Center), 1954
Oil on canvas, 289.5x173.5 cm
© Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art
© Kate Rothko-Prizel & Christopher Rothko
Mark Rothko, No 40 (Blue Penumbra), 1957
Oil on canvas, 69 3/8 X 43 ¾ inches
Collection Thomas Ammann Fine Art, Zurich
© Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko; Artists Rights Society
Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1953
93.875 × 48 × 1.375 inches
© 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
" The Rothko Chapel in Houston is a meditative space blending art and architecture, designed by Philip Johnson, Howard Barnstone, and Eugene Aubry. Commissioned by the de Menil family, it houses 14 immersive Mark Rothko paintings ..."
Mark Rothko, Untitled (White over Red), 1957
© Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society
Mark Rothko, No. 46 (Black, Ochre, Red Over Red), 1957, 252,1 x 207,6 cm.
© Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society
Mark Rothko, Untitled (Yellow over purple), 1956
Oil on canvas, 69 ½-by-59 3/8-inches
© Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society
Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1969
Acrylic on paper, 74-1/8 x 48-1/8 in. (188.3 x 122.3 cm)
© Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko_ARS
I took this yesterday at the works on paper show at the NGA. This is a popular painting in the usual form on this blog and here we see it look much darker than we are used to. Some of these bright scans we have had forever I am finding are a bit different than reality, but then you have to take into account preferences of the format these are being displayed in. Catalog scans often go for punchy bright looks that dazzle immediately.
More and more, galleries are now using lower light (such as this) to display Rothko works in the manner he might have intended, which would be the kind of lighting he used when painting them. Lighter scans are not exactly fiction as Rothkos (as i have been over on this blog many times) are extremely sensitive to light, both bright and dark and warm and cool. This means that when you bring the lighting up to a lot of museum's standards, you'd get a lighter look to the photo.
This kind of lighting is good for a lot of types of painting but, for me, when you start seeing these works in lower light, Rothko's original intentions make sense.
