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Two bird-like creatures almost fill this this vertical abstract painting. Behind them, the composition is divided into three horizonal zones. The top zone is layered with washes of pink and blue. The middle has vertical and horizontal strokes of ash brown over tan. The third zone, along the bottom, has broad strokes of mint green and white. The two bird-like creatures span the height of the middle zone, with their heads extending into the top zone and their tails into the bottom. The creature on our right looks more like a bird, with a light gray, wedge-shaped body covered with peach-colored dabs that suggest plumage. A curved wing-like shape emerges from its right side. A spindly neck and an orange eye facing our right in profile extend into the upper, pink and blue zone. In that zone, above the bird’s head, are a blue and yellow spiral, at the top center of the painting, and a mint-green, curving form reminiscent of a butterfly near the upper right corner. The creature on our left is more difficult to follow. In the upper zone, a ghostly, rooster-like head faces our right in profile, with a coxcomb and long, beard-like shape striped with angled, chevron lines down its length. In the middle, a form that could be the bird’s wide body has horizonal black lines against a white field. The white areas curve around a peach-colored shape, like a fat, cartoonish exclamation point, up the center. What could be tail feathers fan out into the mint-green zone along the bottom. The artist signed the lower right corner, “MARK ROTHKO.”

Mark Rothko

Hierarchical Birds, 1944

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 100.7 × 80.5 cm (39 5/8 × 31 11/16 in.)

framed: 107.95 × 87 × 8.57 cm (42 1/2 × 34 1/4 × 3 3/8 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc.

Accession Number

1986.43.20

Artists / Makers

Mark Rothko (painter) American, born Russia (now Latvia), 1903 - 1970

Image Use

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Copyright

Inscription

lower right: MARK ROTHKO; upper left reverse, diagonally: MARK ROTHKO

Provenance

The artist [1903-1970]; his estate; consigned 1970 to (Marlborough Gallery, Inc., New York); transferred 1977 back to the artist's estate;[1] transferred 1979 to The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc., New York; gift 1986 to NGA.

[1] For a detailed discussion of the transactions surrounding the Rothko estate see Lee Seldes, Legacy of Mark Rothko, New York, 1978.

Associated Names

Rothko Foundation, Inc., Mark, The

Exhibition History

1945: Mark Rothko Paintings, Art of this Century, New York, 1945, no. 3.

1946: Oils and Watercolors by Mark Rothko, San Fransisco Museum of Art; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1946, unnumbered checklist.

1978: Mark Rothko, 1903-1970: A Retrospective, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1978-1979, no. 46, repro. (shown only in New York).

1987: Mark Rothko 1903-1970, The Tate Gallery, London; Fundación Juan March, Madrid; Museum Ludwig, Cologne, 1987-1988, no. 11 (London catalogue), no. 5 (Madrid catalogue), no. 10 (Cologne catalogue), repros.

1987: Peggy Guggenheim's Other Legacy, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, 1987-1988, no. 52, repro. (shown only in New York).

1996: Pintura Estadounidense: Expresionismo Abstracto [Abstract Expressionism and the American Experience], Centro Cultural Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City, 1996-1997, no. 95, repro.

1998: Mark Rothko, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1998-1999, no. 16 (NGA/WMAA cat.) and no. 10 (Paris cat.), repro.

1998: The Surrealist Vision: Europe and the Americas, Bruce Museum of Arts and Science, Greenwich, Connecticut, 1998, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

1999: Dreams 1900-2000: Science, Art, and the Unconscious Mind, The Equitable Gallery, New York; Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien, Vienna; Binghamton University Art Museum; Passage de Retz, Paris, 1999-2001, pl. 110 (shown only in New York and Vienna).

2005: Pollock to Pop: America's Brush with Dalí, Salvador Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida, 2005-2006, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

2011: Loan to display with permanent collection, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, 2011-2012.

2012: Mark Rothko, Portland Art Museum, Oregon, 2012, no catalogue.

2012: Mark Rothko: The Decisive Decade, 1940-1950, Columbia Museum of Art, South Carolina; Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; Denver Art Museum; The Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, 2012-2014, no. 14, repro.

2019: Mark Rothko [German title: Mark Rothko: Dramaturg der Form], Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna, 2019, no. 15, repro.

Bibliography

1983: Ashton, Dore. About Rothko. New York, 1983: 84, repro.

1987: Bravo, Pilar. "Mark Rothko, el color de la emocion." Comunidad Escolar (1987): repro.

1988: Polcari, Steven. "Mark Rothko: Heritage, Environment, and Tradition." Smithsonian Studies in American Art 2, no. 2 (1988): 47, repro.

1990: Ferrier, Jean-Louis. L'aventure de l'arte au XXeme siecle. Paris, 1990: 430, repro.

1992: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 297, repro.

1994: Newman, Rothko, Still: Search for the Sublime. Exh. cat. C & M Arts, New York, 1994: no. 2, repro.

1997: Anfam, David. "Mexico City: Abstract Expressionism." The Burlington Magazine 139 (1997): 147, repro.

1998: Anfam, David. Mark Rothko: The Works on Canvas: Catalogue Raisonné. New Haven and London, 1998: no. 239, repro.