Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock was an American Abstract Expressionist known for pouring, dripping, and flinging fluid paint across canvases laid on the floor.
Painter
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko was an American abstract painter known for large canvases of softly edged color fields and for the emotional impact of his paintings.
Mark Rothko quick facts
Rothko developed large fields of color from earlier figurative and Surrealist work, becoming a leading Abstract Expressionist through his mature canvases.
| Full name | Markus Rothkowitz |
|---|---|
| Born | September 25, 1903 · Dvinsk, Russian Empire (now Daugavpils, Latvia) |
| Died | February 25, 1970 · New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Nationality | American (born in the Russian Empire) |
| Movements | Abstract Expressionism · Color Field Painting |
| Paint types | Oil paint · Acrylic paint |
| Other media | — |
| Other materials | — |
| Painting surfaces | Canvas · Paper |
| Painting methods | Softly edged oil color fields layered on canvas; later acrylic fields on canvas and paper |
| Common subjects | Early figures and city scenes; later luminous rectangles of color, often stacked vertically |
| Notable works | No. 10 (1950), the Seagram Murals, and the Rothko Chapel paintings |
Sources: National Gallery of Art: Mark Rothko, MoMA: Mark Rothko, MoMA: No. 10, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art: Untitled, acrylic on paper, National Gallery of Art: Rothko Foundation works, and National Gallery of Art: 1969 acrylic on canvas.
Paint types used by Mark Rothko
Rothko used oil for luminous mid-century color fields and acrylic for later canvases and works on paper, adapting each medium to broad divisions of color.
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Oil paint
No. 10 (1950) is oil on canvas. Rothko arranged broad areas of yellow, blue, white, and gray so their softened boundaries appear to shift as viewers approach the large work. Its thin, overlapping passages and subtly different edges helped establish his characteristic color-field compositions; the museum records oil rather than acrylic for this painting.
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Acrylic paint
In 1969, Rothko made several Untitled paintings using acrylic on paper, including a brown composition divided into two softly edged fields held by the National Gallery of Art. The museum also records an Untitled acrylic on canvas with a dark upper field and a pale blue-gray lower field.
Sources: MoMA: No. 10 (1950), oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art: Untitled (1969), acrylic on paper, and National Gallery of Art: Untitled (1969), acrylic on canvas.
Painting surfaces used by Mark Rothko
Documented works by Mark Rothko use Canvas, Paper, with examples below clarifying when a material is a painted ground, backing, or constructed element.
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Canvas
Rothko’s color-field paintings, including MoMA’s No. 10 (1950), are documented on canvas. Thin, overlapping oil passages form broad fields with softened edges, whose relationships can appear to shift as viewers approach the large work. This is the principal support for his monumental oil paintings.
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Paper
Rothko made drawings and water-based studies on paper, distinct from his large canvases. The National Gallery of Art records late acrylic paintings on paper, including an untitled composition divided into softly edged fields, documenting paper as a finished support as well as a sketching surface.
Sources: National Gallery of Art: Mark Rothko, MoMA: Mark Rothko, MoMA: No. 10, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art: Untitled, acrylic on paper, National Gallery of Art: Rothko Foundation works.
Painters similar to Mark Rothko
Rothko's color fields connect him to postwar abstraction, where painters used scale, layered color, and optical effects to shape the viewer's experience.
Helen Frankenthaler
Helen Frankenthaler was a painter whose soak-stain technique let thinned paint enter raw canvas, changing postwar artists’ approach to the support.
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky was a Russian-born painter, teacher, and theorist who explored how color, line, shape, and rhythm could carry meaning in abstract art.
Barnett Newman
Barnett Newman was an American abstract painter known for vast, often monochromatic color fields interrupted by narrow vertical stripes he called zips.