Untitled (woman and girl by a window)
1936/1937
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 51.1 x 61.3 cm (20 1/8 x 24 1/8 in.) framed: 64.6 x 74.9 x 10.6 cm (25 7/16 x 29 1/2 x 4 3/16 in.)
Classification
Painting
Department
CMC
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc.
Accession Number
1986.43.48
Art Historical Context
Mark Rothko's *Untitled (woman and girl by a window)*, painted around 1936–1937, offers a rare glimpse into the artist's early figurative phase, long before his iconic abstract color fields. Created during the Great Depression era, this intimate oil on canvas depicts a woman and young girl bathed in soft light near a window, evoking quiet domesticity amid economic hardship. At just 51.1 x 61.3 cm, its modest scale invites close contemplation, a far cry from Rothko's later towering murals. Rothko, a Latvian-born immigrant who arrived in the U.S. as a child, began his career with representation...
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...