Marc Rothko
Marc Rothko, , original name Marcus Rothkovitch (1903-70). US abstract painter, born in Russia. Rothko emigrated to the US with his family when he was ten years old. He later studied at Yale (1920-23) but was mainly self-taught as a painter. Although he was a founder of the expressionist group The Ten in 1935 he went on to develop a more surrealist style in the following decade. He developed ‘the style for which he is best known in the late 1940s. His mature paintings tend to juxtapose several rectangular areas of intense colour to create a powerful, almost luminous, effect. These works,’ which are often very large, were in-tended to produce a strong emotional reaction, bordering on the religious, in the viewer. His later paintings, which are more sombre in their colouring, seem to reflect the depression that afflicted him at the end of his life. He died by his own hand.
