National Gallery presents an exhibition focusing on Rothko’s works on paper

From November 19, 2023, through March 31, 2024, the exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, examines some 100 paintings on paper that the artist viewed as finished works in their own right.

Source: National Gallery of Art, Washington · Image: Mark Rothko, “Untitled”, 1959, oil on paper, private collection. © Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko

By considering Rothko’s work on paper, which is largely unfamiliar to art specialists and the public alike, the exhibition offers a new view of the development of the artist’s oeuvre. Made throughout Rothko’s career, the works in the exhibition range from early watercolors of figurative subjects and mythological and surrealist works to oil and acrylic paintings in the artist’s signature format of soft-edged rectangular fields arranged against monochrome backgrounds. Many of the latter are monumental in scale, measuring up to seven feet tall. The exhibition will travel to the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Norway in 2024, where it will be the first major exhibition of the artist’s work held in Scandinavia.

The exhibition comes as the National Gallery approaches the culmination of a decades-long process of cataloging all of Mark Rothko’s works on paper for a forthcoming catalogue raisonné that will be available as both an online resource and print publication. In February 2019, the National Gallery launched the online resource at rothko.nga.gov. As of February 2022, the resource allows users to browse, filter, sort, and compare 1,903 of the approximately 2,600 works on paper by Rothko held in public and private collections worldwide. Additional content being developed in association with this initiative includes an overarching study of Rothko’s work on paper by the lead author of the catalogue raisonné—Adam Greenhalgh, associate curator at the National Gallery—as well as a robust chronology, a biographical memoir by the artist’s daughter, Kate Rothko Prizel, and studies of Rothko’s materials and process by National Gallery conservators.

“The National Gallery is privileged to hold the largest public collection of works by Mark Rothko, thanks to the Mark Rothko Foundation’s transformative 1986 gift. We are committed to the continued study of the artist’s work and to providing accessible resources through which the public can learn more about this renowned artist,” said Kaywin Feldman, director, National Gallery of Art. “Together with the catalogue raisonné of Rothko’s works on paper, this exhibition of the artist’s paintings on paper will add a new dimension to our understanding of his practice and output.”