Seeing Rothko [Issues & Debates]

A collection of essays that explore the profound and varied responses elicited by Rothko’s most compelling creations, plus a facsimile of Rothko’s “Scribble Book” and an early sketchbook.

“I am interested only in expressing basic human emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom,” Mark Rothko (1903–1970) said of his paintings. “If you are moved only by their color relationships, then you miss the point.”

Throughout his career, Rothko was concerned with what other people experienced when they looked at his canvases. As his work shifted from figurative imagery to luminous fields of color, his concern expanded to the setting in which his paintings were exhibited. In a series of analytic, personal, and even poetic essays by contemporary scholars, this volume explores the profound and varied responses elicited by Rothko’s most compelling creations. This volume also reproduces, for the first time, a “Scribble Book,” in which he jotted down his ideas on teaching art to children, and a sketchbook, both dating to the early years of the artist's career.

Seeing Rothko includes essays by David Antin, Dore Ashton, Thomas Crow, John Elderfield, Briony Fer, Charles Harrison, Miguel López-Remiro, Sarah Rich, and Jeffrey Weiss, an introduction by Glenn Phillips, and a bibliography of Rothko’s own writings.

Glenn Phillips is senior curator of modern and contemporary collections and head of exhibitions at the Getty Research Institute.

Thomas Crow is Rosalie Solow Professor of Modern Art at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University and served as director of the Getty Research Institute from 2000 to 2007.