Mark Rothko Quotes on Art

Mark Rothko is a famous American Abstract Expressionist painter. He is best known for his large scale color field abstract paintings that dealt with some of the most elemental aspects of a picture like color and composition. Famous Mark Rothko works include “Black in Deep Red”, “White Center”, “Orange and Tan” and many of his late period paintings were simply called “Untitled”.

Mini biography: Born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz on the 25th of September, 1903 in Daugavpils, Russian Empire (in current day Latvia). His mother was Anna Goldin Rothkowitz and his father Jacob Rothkowitz was a pharmacist. He was married to Edith Sachar between 1932 and 1943. He was then married to second wife Mary Alice Beistle between 1944 and 1970. He had two children: Kate Rothko and Christopher Rothko. The artist died on the 25th of February, 1970 in New York City, United States of America at the age of 66. He committed suicide by overdosing on barbiturates and cutting an artery in his arm. Rothko was buried in the East Marion Cemetery, East Marion, New York, United States of America.

List of Mark Rothko Art Quotes

If previous abstractions paralleled the scientific and objective preoccupations of our times, ours are finding a pictorial equivalent for man’s new knowledge and consciousness of his more complex inner self. Mark Rothko

A painting is not a picture of an experience; it is an experience. Mark Rothko

It’s a risky business to send a picture out into the world. How often it must be impaired by the eyes of the unfeeling and the cruelty of the impotent who could extend their affliction universally! Mark Rothko

I think of my pictures as dramas; the shapes in the pictures are the performers. They have been created from the need for a group of actors who are able to move dramatically without embarrassment and execute gestures without shame. Neither the action nor the actors can be anticipated, or described in advance. Mark Rothko

To us art is an adventure into an unknown world, which can be explored only by those willing to take the risk. Mark Rothko

It is our function as artists to make the spectator see the world our way—not his way. Mark Rothko

Drama moves us: conflict is an inherent pattern in reality. Harmony moves us too: faced as we are with ever imminent disorder. It is a powerful idea. Van Gogh‘s drama and Seurat’s silent harmony were born in the same country and epoch: but they do not contradict one another; they refer to different patterns among those which constitute reality. Mark Rothko

One does not paint for design students or historians but for human beings, and the reaction in human terms is the only thing that is really satisfactory to the artist. Mark Rothko

I paint very large pictures. I realize that historically the function of painting large pictures is painting something very grandiose and pompous. The reason I paint them however, I think it applies to other painters I know, is precisely because I want to be very intimate and human. Mark Rothko

It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted. Mark Rothko

Mark Rothko Self Portrait

More on Abstract American Painter Mark Rothko

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Related or similar popular artists and celebrities include: Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell, Robert Ryman, and other Famous American Artists.