Portrait of a Man in a Cap and Jacket [recto]
1901 to 1925
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
graphite on wove paper
Dimensions
overall: 30.6 x 23.1 cm (12 1/16 x 9 1/8 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc.
Accession Number
1986.56.499.a
Art Historical Context
Step into the early creative world of Mark Rothko *Portrait of a Man in Cap and Jacket [recto]*, a graphite drawing on wove paper created between 1901 and 1925. Measuring 30.6 x 23.1 cm, this intimate work captures Rothko during his formative years, long before his iconic abstract color fields dominated the art world. Born in 1903 in present-day Latvia and immigrating to the United States a child, Rothko honed his skills in representational drawing, reflecting the influences of European traditions and American realism he encountered as a young artist. Rendered in soft graphite on smooth wove ...
About the Artist
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko (born Marcus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz, September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970) stands as one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century American art and a central pioneer of Abstract Expressionism. Born into a Jewish family in Dvinsk (now Daugavpils, Latvia), then part of the Russian Empire, Rothko's early life was marked by the fear and persecution faced by Jews in Tsarist Rus...