Contemplation

1929–1952

Teaching children at the Brooklyn Jewish Center

From 1929 Rothko taught drawing, painting and clay sculpture part-time to schoolchildren at the Center Academy of the Brooklyn Jewish Center, where he remained until 1952.

late 1935

Joins “The Ten”

In late 1935 Rothko joined Ilya Bolotowsky, Ben-Zion, Adolph Gottlieb, Louis Harris, Ralph Rosenborg, Louis Schanker and Joseph Solman to form “The Ten”, whose stated aim was to protest against the supposed equivalence of American painting and literal painting.

1936

An unfinished book on children’s art

In 1936 Rothko began a book, never completed, on the similarities between children’s art and the work of modern painters; in the manuscript he noted that starting with drawing is an academic notion and that “we may start with color”.

21 February 1938

Becomes a US citizen

On 21 February 1938 Rothko received American citizenship, relieved: he had feared that the growing influence of the Nazis in Europe might lead to the sudden deportation of Jews without citizenship.

1940

Shortens his name to Mark Rothko

Concerned about rising antisemitism in Europe and America, Rothko shortened “Markus Rothkowitz” to “Mark Rothko” in 1940; “Roth” still sounded identifiably Jewish, so he settled on “Rothko”. All his works have been signed with that name since.

1940

A pause in painting for the study of myth

In 1940, it is said, Rothko stopped painting altogether to immerse himself in James Frazer’s The Golden Bough and Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams; he later said his approach had been “reformed” by the study of the dramatic themes of myth.