Untitled (Black and Gray), 1969

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Untitled (Black and Gray)

Mark Rothko’s Untitled acrylic painting of 1969 spans a towering rectangular canvas over six feet wide and almost eight feet tall. At first glance, only the square, all black-painted, upper three-quarters of the painting may capture your attention, while the pale gray-painted, rectangular remainder-beneath may for a moment fail to stand out against the just slightly paler wall behind it. A comparably pale, one-inch margin around the perimeter frames the painting.

Along the bottom of the square black section, a lightening is just noticeable in a few patches, as are the bristle tracks of horizontal strokes with a broad brush. Inspection also reveals that the edge touching the rectangle below is slightly uneven–unlike the edges along the margins. But the size and simplicity of Rothko’s painting seem to ask for a broader assessment; and to leave us very free to ponder it.

Rothko once said: “I paint large pictures because I want to create a state of intimacy. A large picture is an immediate transaction; it takes you into it.”

Untitled (Black and Gray) belongs to the final series of paintings Rothko created before committing suicide in 1970. Painted in the wake of an acute illness, the work has a somber palette and stark composition that have long been attributed to the artist’s depressed mental state. Here the fields of color, or non-color, are stretched nearly to the edges of the canvas, and appear to flatten and recede.

 

On loan to Foundation Louis Vuitton for the exhibition Mark Rothko.