Object number1955.6.6

No. 1 (No. 18, 1948)

Date1948-1949

Artist Mark Rothko (American b. Latvia, 1903 - 1970)

CultureAmerican

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsFramed: 72 7/16 x 60 1/4 x 5 1/2 in. (184 x 153 x 14 cm)
Unframed: 67 11/16 x 55 7/8 in. (172 x 142 cm)

Credit LineGift of Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd (Blanchette Hooker, class of 1931)

On View

On view

Period20th c

Classification(s)

Painting

Terms

SignedOn reverse, signed upper right: Mark Rothko

InscribedOn reverse, by artist, upper right: 1949; possibly by artist, upper stretcher bar: #1; by an unidentified hand, on a Betty Parsons gallery label affixed to reverse, in ink: ROTHKO / #1

ProvenanceBetty Parsons Gallery, New York; Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd (Blanchette Hooker, class of 1931); Museum of Modern Art, New York; Vassar College

Vassar Exhibitions

XL: Large-Scale Paintings from the Permanent Collection

Exhibition HistoryFifteen Americans, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 1952, (pp. 18 and 47);

Musee de l'Art Moderne, Paris, France, March 30, 1955 - August, 1956;

Art Since 1923, An Exhibition in Memory of Agnes Rindge Claflin, Vassar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, NY, May 5 - June 16, 1965 (no. 24);

Williams-Vassar Exchange Exhibition, Williams College, Williamstown, MA, February 28 - March 18, 1966;

Two Generations of American Art, 1943-1965, Columbus Gallery of Fine Art, Columbus, OH, November 11 - December 2, 1966;

Salute to Mark Rothko, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT, May 6 - June 20, 1971;

Mark Rothko, 1903-1970: A Retrospective, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, October 26, 1978 - January 21, 1979; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX, February 15 - April 8, 1979; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, April 25 - June 10, 1979; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, July 3 - September 26, 1979, (no. 77, p. 56);

Paintings and Sculpture from the Collection of Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, July 1 - August 7, 1960

Art in Embassies, Museum of Modern Art, Santiago, Chile, 1969;

Art from the Ivory Tower, Selections from College and University Collections, Emerson Gallery, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY, April 9 - May 29, 1983

Art in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-1980, Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA, June 15 - August 18, 1985;

Extended Loan to The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, November 20, 1990 - May 3, 1993

Highlights from the Vassar College Collection, IBM Gallery of Science and Art, New York, NY, July 13 - September 11, 1993

Mark Rothko, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, May 3 - August 16, 1998, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, September 10 - November 29, 1998; Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France, 1998/1999;

Paris--New York; Modern Paintings in 19th and 20th Century Master Works from the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York, Shimane Art Museum, Matsue, Japan, March 7 - May 11, 2008; Ishibashi Museum of Art, Kurume, Japan, May 17 - July 20, 2008; Yamagata Museum of Art, Yamagata, Japan, July 30 - August 31, 2008; Fuchu Art Museum, Fuchu, Japan, September 6 - November 3, 2008; Miyazaki Prefectural Art Museum, Miyazaki, Japan, November 14 - December 14, 2008;

Poughkeepsie, NY, FLLAC, Vassar College, "XL: Large-scale Paintings from the Permanent Collection," Jan 30 - March 29, 2015

DescriptionBorn Marcus Rothkowitz, Rothko came to the United States with his family in 1913, receiving his education at Yale University for two years before going to New York to become a professional artist. Through the period 1947/48, Rothko worked in a largely figurative style that then began to transmogrify into what becomes his classic phase around 1950, soft colored rectangles superimposed on another field of color, simultaneously suggesting a tran- quility and tension among these areas of color. Within this development, the Vassar painting plays a very important role, being one of just a handful of works that fully articulate the transition from the realm of the somewhat recognizable to that of the completely abstract. In No. 1 (No.18, 1948), Rothko painted a group of various round, square, triangular, and bulbous forms that are applied to a reddish-orange ground over which a more sienna colored soft rectangle floats like a cloud. Thus, the work becomes absolutely pivotal as one can look at this painting and simultaneously understand his origins and his future as a painter. Half of Rothko’s total output of painted work date after 1948, making the Vassar painting literally a midway point in - numbers and style. He would have another twenty-two years to paint the remainder of his oeuvre before he took his own life on 25 February 1970. The Rothko painting is one of the most requested paintings for traveling exhibitions from the Vassar collection.

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email loebcollections@vassar.edu