Mark Rothko (1903-1970) . No. 43 (MAUVE)

signed, numbered and dated 'MARK ROTHKO 1960 #43' (on the reverse and on the stretcher) - oil on canvas  - 91½ x 69½ in. (232.4 x 176.5 cm.)  - Painted in 1960 - Estimate $20,000,000 - $30,000,000 

The Collection of Alice Lawrence

Provenance: Dr. Edgar F. Berman, Baltimore.
The Estate of Dr. Edgar F. Berman, Baltimore; sale, Sotheby's New York, 10 November 1988, lot 21.
Acquired at the above sale by the late owner.

Literature: D. Anfam, Mark Rothko: A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven, 1998, p.543, no. 685 (illustrated in color).

Notes: As Mark Rothko once revealingly described in an interview, "Often, towards nightfall, there's a feeling in the air of mystery, threat, frustration--all these at once. I would like my paintings to have the quality of such moments" (quoted in D. Anfam, Mark Rothko: The Works on Canvas: A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven, 1988, p. 88). Through its shadowy veils of color, Rothko's majestic painting No. 43 (MAUVE) succeeds in evoking both this crepuscular atmosphere and resonant emotional affect that the artist so highly valued. Dedicated to the expression of the deepest human passions, Rothko sought to convey through his abstract paintings nothing less than the tragic dimensions of human existence.

Painted on a monumental scale, No. 43 (MAUVE) of 1960 enfolds the viewer in a rich expanse of tenebrous hues. Its hazy near-black rectangular fields of paint appear, paradoxically, to defy gravity, floating weightlessly against a radiant field of purple. The painting follows Rothko's classic compositional format, its stacked rectangles of pure color created by gradually building up layers of thinly brushed pigment to create an atmosphere that envelops the spectator. Through these dark veils of paint, a glimmer of purple gradually emerges as the viewer's eyes adjust to the darkness. Rothko encouraged this deep meditative gaze upon his works, creating an experience for the viewer that approximates the slow process of revelation.

The nocturnal palette of No. 43 (MAUVE) evokes a sense of the unfathomable. The dark central passages that float against the canvas can at times seem to recede inward, suggesting the infinite space of a void. Rothko achieves this spatial complexity through his careful manipulation of paint, which he applied with a striking variety of gestures, from broad flat passages applied with housepainters' brushes to delicately quivering strokes and smudges. Each contrasting passage of paint plays against its neighbors like a series of musical chords. The brushwork reaches a crescendo in the borders of the suspended rectangles, where the flickering edges at times seem to dance like flames, and at other times seem to dissolve into a smoky mist. Rothko enlivened these edges by layering and smudging contrasting colors against the black paint, such as warm tones of red or cooler shades of violet, extracting great visual force from this effect of halation. Thus, it appears as if light is emanating from within darkness.

Like Rembrandt, one of his great heroes, Rothko was deeply attuned to the spiritual effect of light. As his biographer recalled, "'Rembrandt and Rothko,' Rothko would say to a friend; then pause, smile and say, 'Rothko and Rembrandt'" (quoted in J. E. B. Breslin, Mark Rothko: A Biography, Chicago, 1993, p. 339). Rothko indeed sought to attain the mythical status of his hero, yet through the modern language of abstraction, which he believed could speak to universal human emotion.
Rothko had struck upon his classic compositional format in the late forties, which he employs here to great effect. While in his early career he painted abstracted figures in a Surrealist-inflected style, which often made direct reference to themes of religion and classical myth, he gradually moved towards full abstraction, feeling that color itself could express the full weight of his expression. His early abstract works, known as the Multiforms, had a mosaic-like effect, with a complex array of colors floating in various patterns on the surface of his canvas. He gradually reduced the number and arrangement of colors, arriving at his classic composition style, which was comprised of two or three rounded rectangular forms floating upon a field of color that bleeds to the edge. This dramatically reduced format allowed his chromatic fields to carry the full weight of expression, and Rothko was able to articulate an astonishing range of deeply spiritual and emotional states through his nuanced arrangements of color. As Rothko explained of his commitment to this format, "If a thing is worth doing once, it is worth doing over and over again-- exploring it, probing it, demanding by this repetition that the public look at it" (Ibid., p. 329).

In the history of art, the colors of purple and mauve have often been employed to allude to deep spiritual mysteries, an effect Rothko particularly valued. Jackson Pollock also exploited mystical resonance of purple in the title of one of his most famous paintings, Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist). The color of both dawn and twilight, purple has a particularly ethereal resonance. Shades of purple have been famously used by artists to depict scenes of moonlight, as in Friedrich's Moonrise over the Sea, or Turner's Moonlight, a Study at Millbank. Like these eighteenth and nineteenth-century predecessors, whose art celebrated the transcendent and awe-inspiring forces of nature, Rothko's epic paintings succeed in evoking a distinctly modern experience of the sublime, as Robert Rosenblum eruditely pointed out in 1961, just a year after Rothko completed the present painting. Whereas earlier artists had used nature as a metaphor for the supernatural forces that lie beyond our vision, Rothko summons equally expressive power from pure fields of color.

Rothko was famously quoted as saying that he wanted his works to convey the fundamental emotions of "tragedy, ecstasy, doom" (quoted in Mark Rothko: Writings on Art, New Haven, 2006, p. 119). Living through the upheavals of both world wars, Rothko believed that the forces of tragedy and violence were at the core of human existence. As Rothko described in a speech given in 1958, "the tragic notion of the image is always present in my mind when I paint" (quoted in Breslin, p. 395). With its sonorous palette, No. 43 (MAUVE) manages to convey both tragedy as well as ecstasy, suffusing the spectator in an atmosphere that is solemn yet also quietly rapturous. Focusing on these deep tones of black, mauve and wine, No. 43 (MAUVE) employs a chromatic range that Rothko would further explore in his 1964-1967 cycle of paintings for his famed chapel in Houston.

After 1957, Rothko's palette increasingly darkened, and reached a dramatic pitch in works such as the present painting. While No. 43 (MAUVE) has a distinct sense of gravitas, it is not, however, as somber and brooding as many of his other dark works, as it is tempered by the lavender light that seems to glow from within. Rothko had turned to a darker palette partly in response to his rapidly growing success--as his sales increased, he became increasingly bitter about his work being turned into a commodity, and felt a need to protest against the notion that collectors could turn works into decorative pieces. Even while he was celebrated in a landmark 1961 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and other international venues, Rothko struggled with the internal and external pressures that came with his critical and financial success.

As demonstrated by the expansive scale of No. 43 (MAUVE) Rothko wanted to immerse the viewer in his paintings. As Rothko explained, "I paint very large pictures. I realize that historically the function of painting large pictures is painting something very grandiose and pompous. The reason I paint them, however--I think it applies to other painters I know--is precisely because I want to be very intimate and human. To paint a small picture is to place yourself outside your experience, to look upon an experience as a stereopticon view or with a reducing glass. However you paint the larger picture, you are in it. It isn't something you command" (quoted in Mark Rothko, 1903-1970: A Retrospective, New York, 1978, p. 62). The core of Rothko's objective in painting was indeed this emotional interaction, a profound belief in the power of art to express and affect the deepest feelings of humanity. As Rothko explained, paintings are in the end dependent on the perceptive viewer: "A picture lives by companionship, expanding and quickening in the eyes of the sensitive observer" (Ibid.).

Christie's. The Modern Age: The Collection of Alice Lawrence. 5 - 6 November 2008. New York, Rockefeller Plaza - Image Christie's Ltd 2008. www.christies.com