Landscape [verso]

1921–1923

Yale: a satirical magazine against snobbery

At Yale, which he entered in September 1921 on a scholarship, Rothko and Aaron Director put out a satirical magazine, The Yale Saturday Evening Pest, that lampooned the university’s stuffiness, elitism and racism. The scholarship was not renewed after his first year, so he took odd jobs to pay his way.

autumn 1923

New York: “born as an artist”

In the autumn of 1923 Rothko moved to New York and, visiting a friend at the Art Students League, watched students sketching a model: that moment, he later said, was when he was “born as an artist”. He took lessons from George Bridgman and later studied at the New School of Design, where Arshile Gorky was among his teachers.

1923

Drops out of Yale

In 1923, at the end of his second year, Rothko left the university: by one account disgusted by its elitism and racism, by another because of money troubles or boredom with his courses.

1925–1926

Max Weber: art as emotional and religious expression

Rothko attended Max Weber’s classes at the Art Students League only briefly, from October to December 1925 and from March to May 1926, but Weber strongly influenced his early work: from then on Rothko saw art as a vehicle for emotional and religious expression.