Over-size 1990s silkscreen poster after a 1951 painting by Mark Rothko.  Printed on heavy-weight vellum paper.  Sheet size: 55 x 31.5 inches.  This magnificent silkscreen poster is in mint condition and is a vivid example of his unique style.
 
Mark Rothko (1903 - 1970), born Marcus Rothkowitz, was a Russian-American abstract artist of the mid-20th century.  Although Rothko was a well-educated man who spoke four languages, his artistic skills were largely innate, without much formal training.  A solo exhibition that took place in 1945 at Peggy Guggenheim's “Art of This Century” gallery in New York catapulted him to great fame and critical acclaim as a member of the first major American artistic movement recognized by the art world, Abstract Expressionism.  Along with Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner and Franz Kline, amongst others, Rothko helped put New York at the center of the Western art world, a role previously filled by Paris.  He was a socialist, and had a deep distrust for money and material wealth.  Rothko believed that art was truly an expression of emotion and social circumstance, and was deeply concerned that people wanted to buy his paintings because they were fashionable, not because they were moved by them.  Thus, his fame and fortune weighed upon him, and Mark Rothko took his own life in his New York studio on 25th February 1970.