Mark Rothko

Remember my prints that were in the student art show?  Here is the link.   My inspiration was Mark Rothko.  He is my current most favorite artist.  I like his later work as a leader in the Abstract Expressionism movement and am in love with color field painting.  When I won the print division I received a book of his work.  I was thrilled.  But I had never seen a Mark Rothko in real life until this summer.

I went home to Indiana for the family reunion.  We just wandered our way to Indiana and then back home to Maine.  We didn't plan any stops in advance of each morning when we'd choose how far to drive and book a hotel room to stay at the end of the day.  At one of the rest stops in Upper New York, I picked up a brochure for an art museum associated with the PrattMWP College of Art and Design.  It wasn't far and it boasted modern art, my favorite style, so we stopped to visit it.

Wow!  Jackson Pollock, Norman Lewis, Dali, Picasso, Frankenthaler, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Rothenberg, to name a few of the artists, and a Rothko.  A ROTHKO!!  I saw it out of the corner of my eye when I entered the gallery.  I thought it was a Rothko but didn't look close.  I slowly cruised the gallery studying each picture and inching my way to the picture I hoped was a Rothko.  Finally I arrived and let myself take a good look at the picture.  Yes!  It was a Rothko.  I sat on the bench in front of it and enjoyed it for a very long time.  Little copies just don't do the multi-layered colors in his large paintings justice.  Here is a Rothko for  you to enjoy till you can see one in person.