• Mark Rothko, Untitled (Seagram Mural Sketch), 1959, oil and mixed media on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc. © 1998 by Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko
    English

    The Darker Side of Mark Rothko

    More than 50 years after Russian-born Mark Rothko was commissioned to create mural canvases for the nondenominational Rothko Chapel, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston is set to display the largest exhibition of his works since the late 90’s. Not too long before the chapel opened its doors, its artist took his life in a heartbreaking tradition seen by many artists like himself; self-annalistic and continually misunderstood (overdose of pills and razor blade to the wrists). Depressing? So was the last period of his work, marked by his twenty-five painting series: Black on Gray, a desolation of canvases choked by a white border, leaving the viewer acutely aware of…