From 9th September till 26th of February 2011 Whitechapel Gallery in East London shows exhibition Rothko in Britain. Every good exhibition makes a visitor who came with little knowledge about the artist and his art leave with a feeling of astonishment over artists life and familiarity with her/his work. For me, every impressive exhibition made me rediscover the artist yet again and become truly absorbed by the art and especially by artist's life. Rothko’s abstract paintings made a very big impression on my while visiting the permanent exhibition in Tate Modern last week. However only this small and narrow in its focus exhibition in Whitechapel Gallery encouraged me to engage more deeply with artists biography and the relationship between American and British artists. Mark Rothko was born in 1903 in Latvia and in 1910 together with his family emigrated to New York. In New York Rothko has been taught by such admirable persons as Max Weber and Arshile Gorky. Later on, his work evolved into the style known as Abstract Expressionism, being dominated by colour and light.
Rothko in Britian in Whitechapel Gallery revisits Mark Rothko’s exhibition shown in Whitechapel Gallery exactly 50 years ago. Alongside Rothko’s painting Light Red Over Black (1957) it displays original letters, photographs and reviews from 1961 exhibition. It uncovers how precise Mark Rothko was in giving directions concerning for example lightning and distance between the paintings. As different reviews describe, the effect was incredible and audience truly thrilled and impressed. Original letters also reveal artist's attitude towards Europe and European art, shedding a light on the relationship between British and American art at the time.
Exhibition in Whitechapel Gallery in 1961 presents itself as fundamentally important in connecting British and American art. Although one can only imagine now how wonderful 1961 Rothko’s exhibition was, Rothko in Britain is surely an invitation to see Rothko’s incredible paintings on the permanent exhibition in Tate Modern. Possibly, Rothko's positive experience from displaying his art in Europe led him to the donation of the Seagram murals to the Tate Modern. This gesture is marked by the sad event of artist's tragic death. His art including Light Red Over Black, arrived in Britain on 25 February 1970, the very same day that Mark Rothko committed suicide.
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