Mark Rothko: The Works on Canvas - Hardcover

Anfam, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300074891 ISBN 13: 9780300074895

Publisher: Yale University Press, 1998

Synopsis

Originally published in 1998 and still in print, this quintessential volume presents an overview of Mark Rothko’s stunning corpus of paintings on canvas and panel. With all works reproduced in color, the book includes the images for which Rothko is most famous—the large, hypnotic, poignant fields of color—along with almost 400 additional paintings that are far less well known and reveal an artist who was attuned by turns to realism, expressionism, surrealism, and the avant-garde issues of his era.

"Far and away the best monograph ever written on Rothko."—Yve-Alain Bois, Artforum


Published in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington

About this title

About the Author

David Anfam is a leading authority on modern American art. A regular contributor to The Burlington Magazine, he is the curator of several major Rothko exhibitions. His publications include Abstract Expressionism and Franz Kline: Black & White, 1950-1961.

From the Inside Flap

This book is the first volume of the definitive catalogue raisonné of the work of Mark Rothko, one of the greatest abstract artists of the twentieth century. It documents Rothko's entire output of paintings on canvas and panel, reproducing all the extant works in color. An introductory text also investigates every essential feature of Rothko's art.

David Anfam explores the underestimated variety as well as the amazing continuity of Rothko's pictures. These include the images for which Rothko is famous--the large, hypnotic, and poignant fields of color--along with almost 400 further pictures that reveal a far less well known yet fascinating figure who was attuned by turns to realism, expressionism, surrealism, and the avant-garde issues of his era.

Anfam presents a radical overview of Rothko's achievement, drawing upon unpublished material and interviews. Special attention is given to Rothko's sources and themes: they extend from a study of such old masters as Rembrandt and Vermeer to his eventual groundbreaking vision of painting as an environment, expressed in the mural cycles and the architectonic ensemble of the Rothko Chapel in Houston. The author analyzes the physical makeup of the paintings, as well as Rothko's innovative sense of space, color, and surface, his complex technical procedures, and the symbolism and philosophical basis of the work. This is combined with an account of Rothko's stylistic evolution and its chronology. Rothko's progress is traced from figuration to an abstract vision imbued with a profound grasp of how the viewer has an interactive role to play in perceiving the works. The volume also includes the most extensive Rothko bibliography ever published. The result of nearly a decade of research sponsored by the National Gallery of Art, this monumental publication is the reference point for all future studies of Rothko's art.

Reviews

When Mark Rothko (1903-70) started his career in New York in the early 1920s, America had no established art. Before his tragic suicide, he completed a mural series for the Rothko Chapel commissioned by the de Menil family, accomplishing for American painting what the Monet water lilies did for French painting in the 1920s. Recently, Rothko has received renewed attention with a traveling retrospective from the National Gallery, currently at the Whitney Museum in New York. Anfam (Mark Rothko: The Chapel Commission, Menil Foundation, 1996) connects Rothko to major figures in art history with a historical, philosophical, literary, mythical, and psychological framework for the artist's development as a painter. Within the catalog itself the reproductions are grouped chronologically, with a complete concordance. Inscription, collection, provenance, and exhibition and publication information for each painting are also provided, and the book closes with the most extensive bibliography compiled on Rothko to date. Lacking only is a chronology of the artist's life. The catalog will continue with works on paper in additional volumes. A necessary purchase for research and academic libraries.?Ellen Bates, New York
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300074891
• ISBN 13: 9780300074895
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 708