Mark Rothko, Street Scene, c. 1937, National Gallery of Art, Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc., 1986.43.21
In 1929 Rothko began teaching children at the Center Academy of the Brooklyn Jewish Center, a position he retained for more than twenty years.
In the 1930s Rothko painted mostly street scenes and interiors with figures. Rejecting conventional modes of representation, he stressed an emotional approach to the subject--an approach he admired in children's art--and
adopted a style characterized by deliberate deformations and a crude application of paint.
