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Moses Myers House

The home of the first permanent Jewish residents of Norfolk, this historic house offers a glimpse of the life of a wealthy early 19th-century merchant family.
More about the house

Jean Outland Chrysler Library

With an extensive collection of more than 106,000 rare and unique volumes relating to the history of art, the Jean Outland Chrysler Library is one of the most significant art libraries in the South. More about the Library

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Historic Houses

Located on Freemason St. —

Open Saturday and Sunday

Noon–5 p.m.

Jean Outland Chrysler Library

By Appointment

Tuesday-Thursday

10:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m.

Moses Myers House

The oldest Jewish home in America open to the public as a museum offers a glimpse of the life of an early 19th century merchant family.
More about the house

About the Library

With an extensive collection of more than 106,000 rare and unique volumes relating to the history of art, the Jean Outland Chrysler Art Library is one of the most significant art libraries in the South. More about the library

Willoughby-Baylor House

Completed in 1794, this former home now presents a mix of art and artifacts. See what's on view

Located in Norfolk

One Memorial Place,
Norfolk, VA
Get Directions

While You're Here

Visit our Museum Shop
and the Wisteria Cafe.

Perry Glass Studio

A state-of-art facility on the Museum’s campus. See a free glassmaking demo Tuesdays–Sunday at noon. Like what you see? Take a class with us! More about the Studio

Moses Myers House

The home of the first permanent Jewish residents of Norfolk, this historic house offers a glimpse of the life of a wealthy early 19th-century merchant family.
More about the house

Jean Outland Chrysler Library

With an extensive collection of more than 106,000 rare and unique volumes relating to the history of art, the Jean Outland Chrysler Library is one of the most significant art libraries in the South. More about the Library

Weddings & Event Rentals

The perfect place for your big day or special event. Get the details

Take a tour

We offer a number of tours on different topics. More about tours

Jean Outland Chrysler Library

Visit one of the most significant art libraries in the South. More about the library

About the Chrysler

Our story spans well over 100 years. See where we began, how we grew, and where we're going. Explore our history

News and Announcements

See what's happening at the Museum, read Chrysler Magazine, and find our Media Center. Read now

Location

745 Duke Street
Norfolk, VA 23510
757-333-6299

Always Free Parking

Get Directions

Third Thursdays

Live art performances monthly.
See the archive

Studio Team

Meet the brilliant minds behind the Studio.
See the team

Studio Assistantship Program

Further your career and join us in Norfolk.
Find out more

The Masterpiece Society

Learn about this innovative group of museum supporters.
Meet the Masterpiece Society

Planned Giving

Help ensure the long-term success of the Museum.
Learn about planned giving

Collections Menu
No. 5 (Untitled)

No. 5 (Untitled)

Artist: Mark Rothko (American, b. Russia, 1903 - 1970)
Date: 1949
Medium: Oil on unprimed canvas
Dimensions:
85 × 63 × 1 1/4 in. (215.9 × 160 × 3.2 cm)
Classification: Modern art
Credit Line: Bequest of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.
Copyright: © Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Object number: 89.54
Terms
  • Abstract
  • Blue
  • Black
  • Tan
  • Abstract
  • New York
In Collection(s)
Not on view
DescriptionThis is an oil on canvas painting on unprimed canvas. It is vertically oriented. The stripes are horizontal. In order, they are: dark gray, light gray with dark squiggles toward the right, blue, darker stripe, blue, light gray, dark gray, blue. They are wide stripes of nearly equal thickness and have soft edges. The center two blue stripes and light gray stripe don't meet the edges of the canvas.
Exhibition History"Mark Rothko," Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, N.Y., January 1950.
"Mark Rothko," Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, N.Y., April 1951.
"Treasures from The Chrysler Museum at Norfolk and Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.," Tennessee Fine Arts Center at Cheekwood, Nashville, Tenn., June 12 - September 5, 1977. (Exh. cat. no. 58)
"Mark Rothko," National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., May 3 - August 16, 1998; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, N.Y., September 10 - November 20, 1998.
"Work of the Month," Education Department, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., September 2001.
"Mark Rothko," Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France, October 18, 2023 - April 2, 2024.
Label textMark Rothko
American, b. Russia, 1903–1970

No. 5 (Untitled), 1949
Oil on unprimed canvas

I’m not interested in the relationship of color to form or anything else. I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotion—tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on… The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them.
–Mark Rothko

Do you think these hazy blocks of deep blue, grey, and brown convey a sense of sorrow, ecstasy, or doom? Mark Rothko hoped to evoke such poignant emotions by painting rectangles of color that appear to float in space and bleed into their surroundings. Although many of his paintings would feature luminous fields of red, orange, and yellow, Rothko believed that darker colors conveyed the tragic state of existence more successfully than brighter hues.

Bequest of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 89.54

Published References Eric M. Zafran and Mario Amaya, _Treasures from the Chrysler Museum at Norfolk and Walter P. Chrysler, Jr._, exh. cat., Tennessee Fine Arts Center at Cheekwood, Nashville, Tenn., 1977, no. 58. "La Chronique des Arts: Principales Acquisitions des Musées en 1989," _Gazette des Beaux-Arts: Supplementary_ no. 1454 (March 1990). Jeffrey Weiss, _Mark Rothko_, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., 1998, 94-95, no. 41. ISBN: 0894682296 David Anfam, _Mark Rothko, The Works on Canvas, Catalogue Raisonné_ (New Haven: Yale University Press; Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1998), 61-62, 314, no. 412. ISBN: 0300074891 Lynn Gamwell, with foreword by Neil deGrasse Tyson, _Exploring the Invisible: Art, Science and the Spiritual_ (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 271-272, plate 271. ISBN: 0691089728 Jacob Baal-Teshuva, _Mark Rothko, 1903-1970: Pictures as Drama_ (Köln: Taschen, 2003), 49. ISBN: 3822818208 Martha N. Hagood and Jefferson C. Harrison, _American Art at the Chrysler Museum: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_ (Norfolk, Va.: Chrysler Museum of Art, 2005), 202-203, no. 126. ISBN: 0-940744-71-6 Edited by Glenn Phillips and Thomas Crow, _Seeing Rothko_ (Los Angeles: Getty Trust Publications: Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, 2005), 34, 56 pl.20. ISBN: 978-0892367344 Bonnie Clearwater, _The Rothko Book_ (London: Tate Publishing, 2006), 89. Mentioned, not illustrated ISBN: 978-1854375735 Jeff Harrison, _Collecting with Vision: Treasures From the Chrysler Museum of Art_ (London: D. Giles Ltd., 2007), 76, fig. 86. ISBN: 978-0-940744-72-1 _Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction_, auction catalogue, Christie's: London, June 28, 2011, 92.
Provenance Lawrence Rubin, New York; Betty Parsons Gallery, New York; Priscilla Peck; Frank Stella, New York; Knoedler Galleries, New York, May 8, 1976; Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.; Bequest of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. to the Chrysler Museum at Norfolk, Virginia, 1989.
Catalogue EntryMark Rothko
Dvinsk, Russia 1903-1970 New York, N.Y.
No. 5 (Untitled), 1949
Oil on unprimed canvas, 85 × 63 in. (215.9 × 160 cm)
Signed and dated on reverse: MARK ROTHKO
1949
Bequest of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., 89.54
Reproduction © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

References: Jeffrey Weiss, Mark Rothko, exhib. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1998-99, p. 94, no. 41; David Anfam, Mark Rothko, The Works on Canvas, Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and Washington, D.C., 1998, pp. 61-62, 314, no. 412.

Mark Rothko was one of the most influential members of the Abstract Expressionist movement in 1950s New York and a key figure in the genesis of American color field painting (see object 83.592, 71.666, 85.43, 89.49). Born Marcus Rothkowitz in Dvinsk, Russia, Rothko immigrated to the United States at the age of ten and settled with his family in Portland, Oregon. In 1924, after a period of academic study at Yale University, he moved to New York with plans to become an artist. Though he sporadically attended classes at the Art Students League-his studies with the Expressionist painter Max Weber were formative-he was largely self-taught and developed his craft by studying the art of contemporaries like Milton Avery (see object 71.1085), whose paintings of reductive forms and broad color masses were important for his future development.
During the early decades of his career-from the mid-1920s to the late 1940s-Rothko worked his way through a succession of modernist styles that carried him inexorably toward abstraction and an ever-purer expression of his art's central theme: the essential tragedy of the human condition. His first paintings were representational subjects-genre scenes, portraits, landscapes, and still lifes-executed in an Expressionist style. These bleak depictions of lonely city dwellers and haunted urban spaces gave way in the early 1940s to a series of semi-abstract pictographic paintings featuring a complex vocabulary of mysterious, archaic-looking symbols. Influenced by European Surrealism and Jungian psychoanalysis, these works were intended to convey the dark, primordial emotions embedded in ancient myth.
The turning point for Rothko came in the late 1940s as he moved rapidly toward full abstraction, abandoning his Surrealist pictographs to focus on purely nonobjective images of amorphous, blurred blocks of color. As he relinquished all vestiges of traditional subject matter, he also gave up descriptive titles, identifying his works chiefly by numbers. By 1949, as seen in important transitional canvases like the Chrysler's No. 5 (Untitled), he had reached the threshold of his definitive style. From this point on, color alone would be the bearer of meaning and emotion for Rothko.
Composed of vaporous, rectangular color fields stacked weightlessly atop one another and floating against an indeterminate ground, No. 5 directly anticipates Rothko's classic abstract formats of the 1950s. The painting's uniformly somber palette of deep blue, gray-brown, and black is somewhat unusual; most paintings of the period feature brighter fields of red, orange, and yellow. Rothko himself contended that darker colors conveyed the tragic state of human existence more successfully than brighter hues.
Rothko documented his transition from Surrealist imagery to color abstraction in a series of influential one-man shows mounted between 1947 and 1951 at the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York. He included No. 5 in the January 1950 show and again in the April 1951 exhibition. (Photographs by Aaron Siskind show Rothko and Parsons seated in the 1950 installation, with No. 5 visible on the wall to their right.)
During the 1950s Rothko became increasingly reluctant to explicate his work, fearing that words would only "paralyze" the viewer's mind. But in 1957 he famously proclaimed that he "was not an abstractionist. . . . I'm not interested in the relationship of color to form or anything else. I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotion-tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on. . . . The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them."
JCH

Martha N. Hagood and Jefferson C. Harrison, _American Art at the Chrysler Museum: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_ (Norfolk, Va.: Chrysler Museum of Art, 2005), 202-203, no. 126.