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A long, butter-yellow rectangle is stacked over a papaya-orange square, and both float against a honey-yellow field in this abstract, vertical painting. The honey-yellow background creates a narrow border around and between the shapes. The brushstrokes throughout have soft, indistinct edges, which creates a blurred effect. At the top, the butter-yellow rectangle extends nearly the width of the painting, and takes up the top third of the composition. A band of canary yellow floats at the center within this rectangle. A tall, narrow band of pale petal pink spans the height of the composition to our left alongside both shapes. The orange square takes up almost all of the bottom two-thirds of the painting. A few vertical lines in cream white are painted within the square, near the left edge. A band of the same papaya-orange is bordered by a slightly darker shade to create a long, narrow rectangle about halfway down the square.

Mark Rothko

No. 8, 1949

Not on View

Medium

oil and mixed media on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 228.3 x 167.3 cm (89 7/8 x 65 7/8 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc.

Accession Number

1986.43.147

Artists / Makers

Mark Rothko (painter) American, born Russia (now Latvia), 1903 - 1970

Image Use

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Copyright

Inscription

upper left reverse: MARK ROTHKO / 1949; upper center reverse: TOP

Provenance

The artist [1903-1970]; his estate; consigned 1970 to (Marlborough Gallery, Inc., New York); transferred 1977 back to the artist's estate;[1] transferred 1979 to The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc., New York; gift 1986 to NGA.

[1] For a detailed discussion of the transactions surrounding the Rothko estate see Lee Seldes, Legacy of Mark Rothko, New York, 1978.

Associated Names

Rothko Foundation, Inc., Mark, The

Exhibition History

1950: Mark Rothko, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, 1950, no cat.

1971: Mark Rothko, Kunsthaus Zurich, 1971, no. 15, repro.

1972: Mark Rotkho, Musee National d'Art Moderne, Paris, 1972, no. 11, repro.

1976: Acquisition Priorities: Aspects of Postwar Painting in America, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Ohio, 1976-1977, no. 19, repro.

1978: Mark Rothko, 1903-1970: A Retrospective, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1978, no. 89.

1983: Mark Rothko 1949: A Year in Transition / Selections from the Mark Rothko Foundation, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1983, no. 3, repro.

1989: Loan to display with permanent collection, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, 1989-1990.

1989: Rothko Paintings from the National Gallery of Art, North Carolina Museum, Raleigh, 1989, no cat.

1998: Mark Rothko, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1998-1999, no. 40 (NGA/WMAA cat.) and no. 22 (Paris cat.), repro.

2000: Mark Rothko, 'A consummated experience between picture and onlooker', Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona; Fondation Beyeler, Basel, 2000-2001, no. 17, repro.

2001: Mark Rothko Rooms, Fondation Beyeler, Basel, 2001-2002, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

2010: Vertical Thoughts: Morton Feldman and the Visual Arts, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2010, unnumbered catalogue, repro., as No. 8 [Multiform].

2012: Mark Rothko, Portland Art Museum, Oregon, 2012, no catalogue.

2012: Mark Rothko: The Decisive Decade, 1940-1950, Columbia Museum of Art, South Carolina; Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; Denver Art Museum; The Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, 2012-2014, no. 44, repro.

2014: Mark Rothko: Works from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague; Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul Arts Center, South Korea, 2014-2015.

2015: Mark Rothko: A Retrospective, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2015-2016.

Bibliography

1950: "One-Picture Wall or Many-Picture Wall." Vogue (1950): 67, repro.

1983: Delehanty, Hugh J. "Forty-Niner: Mark Rothko's Influence on Bay Area Artists." San Fransisco Focus (1983): 8, repro.

1984: Bolen, Jean Shinoda. "Sacred Experience Evoked by Art: Mark Rothko's Painting and Gnosis." New Realities 6 (1984): 52, repro.

1984: Peck, Cathy. "The Rothko Foundation Plans Its Future." Art News 83 (1984): 80, repro.

1985: Clearwater, Bonnie. "How Rothko Looked at Rothko." Art News 84 (1985): 100, repo.

1988: del Marquet, Iglesias. "El Maestro Rothko." Expression 4 (1988): repro.

1989: "Mark Rothko." North Carolina Museum of Art: Preview (Summer 1989): 8, repro.; (Autumn 1989): cover illustration.

1991: Doss, Erika. Benton, Pollock, and the Politics of Modernism: From Regionalism to Abstract Expressionism. Chicago, 1991: 404, fig. 6.7.

1991: Glimcher, Marc. The Art of Mark Rothko: Into an Unknown World. New York, 1991: 95, repro.

1992: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 315, repro.

1998: Anfam, David. Mark Rothko: The Works on Canvas: Catalogue Raisonné. New Haven and London, 1998: no. 415, repro.