No. 5 (Untitled)
Artist
Mark Rothko
(American, born Russia (now Latvia), 1903 - 1970)
CultureAmerican
Date1949
MediumOil on unprimed canvas
Dimensions85 × 63 × 1 1/4 in. (215.9 × 160 × 3.2 cm)
InscribedSigned and dated on reverse: MARK ROTHKO
1949
Credit LineBequest of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.
Object number89.54
Collections
On View
Chrysler Museum of Art, Gallery 223
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 ProvenanceLawrence 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. 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.Published ReferencesEric 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. 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. 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. Jacob Baal-Teshuva, _Mark Rothko, 1903-1970: Pictures as Drama_ (Köln: Taschen, 2003), 49. 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. 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. Bonnie Clearwater, _The Rothko Book_ (London: Tate Publishing, 2006), 89. Mentioned, not illustrated Jeff Harrison, _Collecting with Vision: Treasures From the Chrysler Museum of Art_ (London: D. Giles Ltd., 2007), 76, fig. 86. _Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction_, auction catalogue, Christie's: London, June 28, 2011, 92. Suzanne Pagé and Christopher Rothko, eds. _Mark Rothko_ (Paris: Citadelles & Mazenod with Fondation Louis Vuitton, 2023) 85, cat. no. 48.
