MARCH 12 TOJUNE 30, 2019

MARK ROTHKO

Mark Rothko (1903–1970) was among the most remarkable artistsof the twentieth century. This exhibition, the first ever to bemounted in Austria, presents a survey of Rothko’s career throughmore than forty major paintings to explore ideas of the sacred, thespiritual, the tragic and the timeless. The artist’s children, Kateand Christopher have been closely involved in the project from itsvery beginning, and have themselves kindly lent a number ofpaintings from the family collection.

Presented within the Kunsthistorisches Museum, whose historicalcollections trace some five thousand years human creativity fromAncient Egypt to the Baroque, the exhibition provides a uniqueopportunity to examine Rothko’s deep and sustained interest inthe art of the past. From his earliest visits as a student to theMetropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and his firstencounters with Rembrandt, Vermeer and classical art and

architecture, to his trips to Europe to see its churches, chapels andOld Master painting collections in Paris, London, Venice, Arezzo,Siena, Rome, Pompeii and Florence, Rothko dedicated himself tothe study of historical art and architecture.

The exhibition underlines the influence of specific places on hisstylistic development, from Michelangelo’s Laurentian Library andFra Angelico’s murals in the convent of San Marco in Florence, tothe Greek temples of Paestum and the Baptistery of Torcello inVenice. When Rothko broke with tradition in the latter part of hislife to create a radical new form of artistic expression, he did sowith extensive knowledge and respect for what had come before.In the words of the critic John Berger, Rothko looked back “in away such as no painter before had ever done”.

The exhibition reveals the radical development of Rothko’s workacross several decades, from his early figurative paintings of the1930s, through the transitional years of the 1940s to thegroundbreaking mature works of the 1950s and 60s. At the heartof the exhibition is an entire gallery of large-scale mural paintingsproduced in 1958-59, originally commissioned for the SeagramBuilding in New York. This is followed by a final gallery of classicpaintings from the last decade of Rothko’s life that demonstratehow he learnt from the techniques of the Old Masters, layeringcolour in the manner of Titian and developing a sense of ‘innerlight’ similar to that of Rembrandt.

With unsparing intensity and a total commitment to risk, Rothkocreated a form of human drama that continues to move andinspire artists, curators and the general public to this day. In thewords of Gerhard Richter: “He was a man who created a specialart for us, and no one else will do such paintings again. I believeRothko will be important for centuries to come.”

Rothko never visited Austria, but he is thought to have seen thecollections of the Kunsthistorisches Museum when they wereexhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1950. He did,however, know the country through its music, about which hewas passionate. He owned recordings by the Vienna Konzerthausof Mozart, Schubert, Haydn and Beethoven, and once famouslysaid: „I became a painter because I wanted to raise painting to thelevel of poignancy of music and poetry.“

Curated by Jasper Sharp with the close support and advice ofChristopher Rothko, the exhibition is presented in theKunsthistorisches Museum’s Picture Gallery. Major loans havebeen secured from the Rothko Family and the National Gallery ofArt, Washington, D.C., in addition to museums including theFondation Beyeler, Riehen, the Jewish Museum, New York,Kunstmuseum Bern and Kunstmuseum Basel. The accompanyingcatalogue includes contributions from Christopher Rothko, JasperSharp and Thomas Crow and has been published in both Englishand German.

Exhibition design: Michael Embacher and Christoph WirthLighting design: Philipp Metternich

Modern and Contemporary Art at theKunsthistorisches Museum

The Kunsthistorisches Museum is uniquely placed to present suchan exhibition. Its collection of Old Master paintings by artistsincluding Bruegel, Caravaggio, Dürer, Holbein, Raphael,Rembrandt, Rubens, Titian, Velazquez and Vermeer iscomplemented by antiquities from Ancient Egypt, Greece andRome, a remarkable Kunstkammer of naturalia, exotica,scientifica and artificilia, arms and armour, tapestries, musicalinstruments and much more. Seen together, the collectionsrepresent some 5,000 years of human endeavour, from AncientEgypt until the year 1800. In recent years, the museum hasdeepened its engagement with the art and artists of more recenttimes in order to explore their relationship with our historicalcollections. A new programme of major exhibitions was initiatedin 2013 with a survey exhibition of the painter Lucian Freud,conceived together with the artist before his death. Theprogramme continued in 2015 with a retrospective exhibition ofthe boxes and collages of Joseph Cornell in conversation with theKunstkammer, the first major show of this artist to have beenstaged in Europe for more than three decades. The exhibition ofMark Rothko in 2019 now continues this dialogue.

BIOGRAPHYMARK ROTHKO

Mark Rothko was born Marcus Rotkovich on 25 September 1903in Dvinsk, part of the Russian Empire (now Daugavpils, Latvia).In 1913, Rothko immigrated to the United States with his motherand sister, joining his father and brothers who had settled someyears previously in Portland, Oregon. After studying at Yale,which he left without graduating, Rothko arrived in New York in1925. Following an invitation from a friend to join a life drawingclass, he developed an interest in art and enrolled at the ArtStudents League. He was a regular visitor at this time to theMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

In 1929 Rothko was offered a position teaching children at theCenter Academy, Brooklyn Jewish Center, a job he retained until1952. He married his first wife, Edith Sachar, in 1932, and had hisfirst solo exhibition in New York at the Contemporary ArtsGallery the following year. Soon afterwards, he and several artistsfriends formed the avant-garde group The Ten, and began toexhibit together. From 1936 to 1937, Rothko was employed aspart of the Federal Works Progress Administration, establishedduring the Depression as a means to support out-of-work artists.

As Rothko’s work developed during the early 1940s, he also beganto commit his thoughts to writing, in a manuscript called TheArtist’s Reality, which was only published decades after his death.He exhibited at Peggy Guggenheim’s museum-gallery Art of ThisCentury in 1945, married his second wife, Mell Beistle, andtogether with artists such as Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman,Willen de Kooning and Clyfford Still formed a group of AbstractExpressionists whose groundbreaking work saw New Yorkreplace Paris as the centre of the contemporary art world.

Rothko’s artistic breakthrough came in 1949 when he developedthe classic compositional format for which he would become bestknown. A few months later, in 1950, he made the first of four tripsto Europe to visit churches, chapels and Old Master paintings; theart and architecture of Italy, in particular, would have a stronginfluence on the development of his work. His first major museumexhibition took place at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1954, andfrom1958 to 1969 he worked on three major commissions: aseries of large-scale canvases for the Seagram Building, New York;a group of mural paintings for Harvard University; and a cycle ofmonumental canvases for a chapel in Houston, Texas, todayknown as the “Rothko Chapel”. Following a period of ill health,Rothko took his own life in February 1970. His wife Mell died sixmonths later, and they were survived by a daughter, Kate and ason, Christopher.

PRESSPHOTOGRAPHS

Press photographs are available in the press section of our websitefree of charge, for your topical reporting: http://press.khm.at/.

The picture files provided by us must not be manipulated, cropped orused for any other purposes. Our press photographs may be publishedonly with complete references to each picture, including a copyrightnotice.

Mark Rothko (1903-1970)Self-Portrait1936Oil on canvas, 81.9 × 65.4 cm© 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko/Bildrecht, Vienna, 2019

Mark Rothko (1903-1970)Portrait of Mary1938/39Oil on canvas, 91.4 × 71.4 cm© 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko/Bildrecht, Vienna, 2019

Mark Rothko (1903-1970)Underground Fantasyc.1940Oil on canvas87.3 × 118.2 cm© 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko/Bildrecht,Vienna, 2019, Photo: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Mark Rothko (1903-1970)Room in Karnak1946Oil on canvas, 94.9 × 69.9 cm© 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko/Bildrecht, Vienna, 2019

Mark Rothko (1903-1970)No. 21947Oil on canvas, 145.4 × 122.4 cm© 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko/Bildrecht,Vienna, 2019, Photo: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Mark Rothko (1903-1970)Untitled1950Oil on canvas, 230.2 × 128.9 cm© 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko/Bildrecht, Vienna, 2019

Mark Rothko (1903-1970)No. 16 (Red, White and Brown)1957Oil on canvas252.2 × 207 cm© 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko/Bildrecht,Vienna, 2019, Photo: Kunstmuseum Basel

Mark Rothko (1903-1970)Untitled1959Oil on canvas269 × 457.8 cm© 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko/Bildrecht,Vienna, 2019, Photo: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Mark Rothko (1903-1970)No. 7 (Dark Brown, Gray, Orange)1963Oil on canvas175.6 × 162.6 cm© 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko/Bildrecht,Vienna, 2019, Photo: Kunstmuseum Bern

Mark Rothko (1903-1970)Untitled (Red, Orange)1968Oil on canvas, 233 x 176 cm© 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko/Bildrecht,Vienna, 2019, Photo: Robert Bayer/Fondation Beyeler,Riehen/Basel, Sammlung Beyeler

Mark Rothko (1903-1970)Untitled1969Oil on canvas, 233.7 × 200.3 cm© 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko/Bildrecht, Vienna, 2019

Mark Rothko with “No. 7”, 1960Photograph attributed to Regina Bogat© 2005 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko, Bildrecht Vienna, 2019

CATALOGUE

The accompanying catalogue includes contributions fromChristopher Rothko, Jasper Sharp and Thomas E. Crow and hasbeen published in both English and German.

Sabine Haag – Jasper Sharp (eds.)Mark Rothko184 p.€ 30

EXHIBITIONPROGRAMME

GUIDED TOURS IN ENGLISH

Every Thursday, 5pm and Saturday, 2pmParticipation fee: € 4

TALKS

Monday, March 18, 7pmChristopher RothkoMark Rothko and the Inner WorldTalk in English and booksigning

Monday, May 20, 7pmBen StreetMark Rothko: Seeing RedTalk in English

Place: Cupola HallPlease register at talks@khm.at

CURATOR TOURSWith Jasper Sharp

MI 20.3., 16 Uhr und MO 3.6. 16 UhrIn English

DO 25.4., 16 UhrIn German

Participation fee: € 4Please register at kunstvermittlung@khm.at

ARTIST TOURS

Herwig KempingerFriday, April 5, 4pmIn German

Judith EislerFriday, May 24, 4pmIn English

Participation fee: € 4Please register at kunstvermittlung@khm.at

CONCERT„Rothko Chapel“ (1971)By Morton Feldman

Company of Music / Johannes HiemetsbergerEnsemble MUK.wien.aktuell

Monday, May 27, 7 pmSaturday, June 29, 7 pm

Place: Cupola HallTickets available at https://shop.khm.at/tickets/

OPENING HOURS ANDENTRANCE FEES

Kunsthistorisches Museum Adults € 16,-Maria-Theresien-Platz Concessions € 12,-1010 Vienna Vienna City Card € 15,-

Groups (of 10 or over) € 12,-Annual Ticket € 44,-Annual Ticket under 25 € 25,-

Tue–Sun, 10am – 6pm Children and teens under 19 freiThu till 9pm Audio guide (Engl./German) € 5,-

June, July and August open daily!

Online tickets are available at https://shop.khm.at/de/tickets/

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PRESS CONTACT

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