His work concentrated on basic emotions, often filling the canvas with very few intense colours, with little immediately-apparent detail. In this respect, he can also be considered to presage the color field painters (see: Helen Frankenthaler). Although respected by other artists, Rothko remained in relative obscurity until 1960, supporting himself by teaching art. In the mid 1960s Rothko collaborated with architect Philip Johnson on a church in Houston, Texas, contributing fourteen related works in an installation setting. The church has latterly become known as "The Rothko Chapel". Numerous other works are scattered in museums throughout the world.
After a long struggle with depression, Rothko committed suicide by cutting his wrists in his New York studio on February 25, 1970. Following his death the settlement of the Rothko estate became the subject of a famous court case (see Rothko Case).
External links
National Galley of Art (http://www.nga.gov/feature/rothko/rothkosplash.html) - features a Rothko timeline, with biography and numerous photographs of his work
Yet, two pages further on, Rothko is quoted as hating and distrusting "all art historians, experts and critics" and prone to revising his artistic evolution the better, presumably, to foil such worthies.
It is certainly true, aside from a few attempts at landscape in his youth, that Rothko is not at all given to bosky bowers.
With Rothko, therefore, it hardly matters that he turned his colored rectangles on their side the better to achieve architectonic images; they do not work because he is, for all practical purposes, turning Nature and his own nature on their side.
By the early 1940s Rothko had become interested in ancient myths and symbols and was profoundly affected by the theory of the collective unconscious put forth by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung.
Rothko saw his paintings as vehicles for communicating a shared repertory of images that are reflective of this collective unconscious.
In addition, Rothko was significantly influenced by French painter Henri Matisse, whose works sacrificed line in favor of color and were in many cases limited to two or three colors.
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