MARK ROTHKO | UNTITLED (RECLINING NUDE)

Private Collection, Los Angeles

Butterfields, San Francisco, 23 April 2002, Lot 6068

Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

This drawing of a nude belongs to the period of Mark Rothko’s career preceding the abstract expressionistic “multiforms” for which he would enter the pantheon of twentieth century art. Indeed, the artist signed the work Mark Rothkowitz, as it was only in 1940 that he would abbreviate his name to ‘Rothko’, which was a reaction to anti-Semitism in the United States and Europe. In the early 1930s, Rothko was one of the artists under the tutelage of Milton Avery, a group that included Adolph Gottlieb and Barnett Newman. The present work depicts a lounging nude, with rapid brushstrokes surrounding the figure conveying an energy that would translate to Rothko’s later works.