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Six elongated, stylized people stand behind and near columns on a train platform in this horizontal painting. The scene is loosely painted so many of the details are indistinct. The front of the platform runs along the bottom edge of the canvas, and the ceiling runs parallel to the top edge. The skin we can see is painted vanilla white or pale yellow. To our left, along a narrow sliver of the platform, a woman stands reading a newspaper held up in front of her face. Her narrow coat and spindly legs are painted with a few swipes of black, smoke gray, and butter yellow, and her head or hat is a swirl of loosely painted strokes in charcoal gray, baby blue, harvest yellow, and white. The white platform steps back in space across the right two-thirds of the composition, and four turquoise-blue pillars are spaced along that area. Closest to the reading woman, a person wearing a scarlet-red coat or dress stands with a shorter person, presumably a child, half her height and wearing a lilac-purple suit. Near the leftmost pillar, a woman wearing an ocean-blue coat and a deep, periwinkle-purple hat leans against the pillar, facing our right in profile. Near the next pillar, a man with clothing painted with long, vertical strokes of olive green stands opposite her. Beyond the two center pillars is a narrow view of a white brick wall with dark grout, with a few strokes of fuchsia pink near the opening. The sixth person stands near the rightmost pillar, facing our left in profile, wearing a broad-brimmed gray hat and gray suit. The back wall is mustard yellow, and the front face of the platform is a band of brick red along the bottom edge.

Mark Rothko

Untitled (subway), c. 1937

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 51.1 x 76.2 cm (20 1/8 x 30 in.)

framed: 61 x 86.4 x 8.7 cm (24 x 34 x 3 7/16 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc.

Accession Number

1986.43.113

Artists / Makers

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

Image Use

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Inscription

center left reverse, sideways: MARK ROTHKO

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

1991: Extended loan for use by Secretary Lynn Martin, U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, D.C., 1991-1993.

1993: Extended loan for use by Secretary Robert Reich, U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, D.C., 1993-1994.

1998: Mark Rothko: The Spirit of Myth, Early Paintings from the 1930s and 1940s (NGA National Lending Service exhibition), The Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, 1998.

2000: Mark Rothko and the Lure of the Figure: Paintings 1933-1946, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, 2000-2001, no. 7, repro.

Bibliography

1978: Malamud, Bernard, Diane Waldman, and Claire Zamoiski. Mark Rothko, 1903-1970: A Retrospective. Exh. cat. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1978: 21, repro.

1979: Fujieda, Teruo. "Special Feature: Mark Rothko." Mizue 888 (March 1979): 46, repro.

1991: Grunenberg, Christoph. Mark Rothko. Washington, D.C., 1991: 6, fig. 3.

1992: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 290, repro.

1998: Anfam, David. Mark Rothko: The Works on Canvas: Catalogue Raisonné. New Haven and London, 1998: no. 108, repro.