This is the 14th post in our Artist of the Week series.
Mark Rothko was born Mark Rothkowitz in 1903 and died in 1970.
He started his life as an artist in 1923, he visited a friend who was studying art and he watched the student sketching models. He grew inspired and enrolled himself in the New School of Design and in the fall he took courses at Art Students League of New York.
Throughout his early career as a painter Mark stuck to street scenes and urban scenes. His work was very expressionist as he rejected all methods of representation and instead sought to bring out the emotion in art.
He was given his first show in 1933 and he continued to do showings and paintings in the expressionist style. It was around this time that he began creating paintings for the New York Subway, these abstract portals and walls expressed confinement and deep emotions.
By the 1940s his work consisted only of colors and rectangular shapes, deciding to make his works completely symbolic and emotional. It is these works that he is most remembered for.
To learn more about Mark Rothko visit this fansite or theArtStory.org
