Abstract picture "No. 7 or No. 11" (1949) by Mark Rothko

About Mark Rothko Mark Rothko (1903-1970) was a leading member of the abstract artist group "New York School" and, along with Jackson Pollock, is the second great representative of American abstract expressionism. The painter, born as Marcus Rothkowitz in Latvia, emigrated to the USA with his family in 1913. From 1921-1923 Rothko was enrolled at Yale University. Before he graduated, he rejected his original plans to become a lawyer or engineer and moved to New York, where he took lessons at the art school "Art Students League of New York". While his early work was still expressive portraits, city scenes and landscapes, he developed his very own visual language in the course of his career: his large-format, mondered monochrome colored areas, aimed at precisely calculated lighting and space effects, on an almost meditative coexistence between image and viewer. Rothko also accepted the offer to develop a concept for an inter -religious prayer room (the "Rothko Chapel" in Houston). A Rothko shapes a room and gives it a face - more of art cannot afford art.