The colourful paintings of Mark Rothko (1903–1970) reinvigorated abstract art and made him one of the most important artists of the 20th century. This summer, the National Museum, in collaboration with the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., is showing a broad selection of works that represent a less familiar side of Rothko’s production. With over 80 paintings on paper, the exhibition traces the artist’s development from his early figurative works and surrealist experiments, via his well-known colour field paintings, through to his last works.
Although best known for his large abstract paintings on canvas, Mark Rothko also painted some 1,000 works on paper. His paintings on paper challenge ideas of what a painting is and reveals an aspect of Rothko’s art that receives closer attention in this exhibition. The genres range from landscapes, portraits and surrealist projects to his characteristic, rectangular colour field works.
A career in art from end to end
The exhibition at the National Museum is organised around four key periods in which painting on paper was crucial to Rothko’s artistic development and quest for a personal idiom. In the Light Hall at the National Museum, you can follow this development through the course of his career.
Following a heart attack in 1968, Rothko was encouraged to work with less demanding materials and formats. As a result, he increased his production of paintings on paper. Some of the works from this period show a sombre palette dominated by black, brown and grey. As a result, they have been interpreted as a reflection of his mental health and a foreboding of his suicide in 1970. But in several of his last works, Rothko also uses bright tones of purple, pink and blue, which complicate our picture of his final years. This richer picture is well illustrated in the National Museum’s exhibition. “Mark Rothko. Paintings on Paper” The National Museum, Light Hall, Oslo, Norway 16 May–22 September 2024