Mark Rothko (born Markus Rothkowitz in 1903 in what is now Daugavpils, Latvia) was a leading figure of post-war American painting. He emigrated with his family to the United States in 1913 and grew up in Portland, Oregon. After a short spell at Yale he moved to New York, studying at the Art Students League and finding his way in the city’s lively art scene.
His early work was figurative, then shaped by myth, theatre and a fascination with psychology and philosophy. By the late 1940s he had moved toward the floating rectangles of colour for which he is best known. These large canvases are built from thin layers of pigment, with edges that appear to breathe, and were designed to be seen up close so the viewer is surrounded by the experience.
Important milestones include the Seagram commission of 1958, for which he painted a series of dark, immersive panels before deciding not to let them hang in the restaurant they were intended for. He later gave a group of related paintings to the Tate in London, where they have their own dedicated room. In the 1960s he worked on the cycle for the Rothko Chapel in Houston, a meditative space that opened after his death and cemented his reputation for creating environments rather than single pictures.
Rothko struggled with ill health and depression and died in New York in 1970. He left behind a powerful body of work that continues to shape how we think about abstraction, scale and colour. His paintings are often described in spiritual terms, yet they are straightforward in their aims: to slow the viewer down and allow feelings to emerge. Today he is regarded as one of the central voices of Abstract Expressionism and Colour Field painting, and his influence remains strong in museums and studios around the world.