Untitled
1946
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 100 × 70 cm (39 3/8 × 27 9/16 in.)
Classification
Painting
Department
CMC
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc.
Accession Number
1986.43.66
Art Historical Context
Mark Rothko's *Untitled* (1946) marks an early milestone in the career of one of the 20th century's most influential Abstract Expressionists. Created just after World War II, this oil on canvas painting—measuring 100 × 70 cm—captures Rothko during a pivotal transitional phase. While he would later pioneer vast, immersive color fields that envelop viewers in emotional depth, works from this period often blend surrealist influences with emerging abstraction, exploring themes of myth, the subconscious, and human fragility amid global upheaval. The intimate scale of this piece contrasts with Roth...
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...