Mark Rothko: The Works on Canvas [Hardcover]

David Anfam (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 10, 1998

This extraordinary book is the first volume of the definitive catalogue raisonne of the work of Mark Rothko, one of the greatest abstract artists of the twentieth century. It documents Rothko's entire output of paintings on canvas and panel, reproducing all the works in color. An introductory text also investigates every essential feature of Rothko's art.

David Anfam explores the underestimated variety as well as the amazing continuity of Rothko's pictures. These include the images for which Rothko is famous -- the large, hypnotic, and poignant fields of color -- along with almost 400 further pictures that reveal a far less well known figure who was attuned by turns to realism, expressionism, surrealism, and the avantgarde issues of his era. Anfam presents a radical overview of Rothko's achievement, offering an analysis of its sources and themes: these extend from a study of such old masters as Rembrandt and Vermeer to his eventual groundbreaking vision of painting as an environment, expressed in the mural cycles and the architectural framework of the Rothko Chapel in Houston. Anfam pays special attention to the physical makeup of the paintings, as well as to Rothko's innovative sense of space, color, and surface, his complex technical procedures, and the symbolism of the work. This is combined with an account of Rothko's stylistic evolution and its chronology, tracing its development from figuration to an abstract vision imbued with a profound grasp of how the viewer has an interactive role to play in perceiving the works. The volume also includes the most extensive Rothko bibliography ever published. The fruit of almost a decade of research, this monumental publication is thereference pont for all future studies of Rothko's art.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

When Mark Rothko (1903-70) started his career in New York in the early 1920s, America had no established art. Before his tragic suicide, he completed a mural series for the Rothko Chapel commissioned by the de Menil family, accomplishing for American painting what the Monet water lilies did for French painting in the 1920s. Recently, Rothko has received renewed attention with a traveling retrospective from the National Gallery, currently at the Whitney Museum in New York. Anfam (Mark Rothko: The Chapel Commission, Menil Foundation, 1996) connects Rothko to major figures in art history with a historical, philosophical, literary, mythical, and psychological framework for the artist's development as a painter. Within the catalog itself the reproductions are grouped chronologically, with a complete concordance. Inscription, collection, provenance, and exhibition and publication information for each painting are also provided, and the book closes with the most extensive bibliography compiled on Rothko to date. Lacking only is a chronology of the artist's life. The catalog will continue with works on paper in additional volumes. A necessary purchase for research and academic libraries.?Ellen Bates, New York
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"A landmark in scholarship for one of North America's most sublime painters." -- The Chicago Tribune, 12/6/98

...it's needed, it's serious and it's well-produced.... By reproducing every painting in color and supplying complete specifications for each, in chronological order, Anfam gives the reader a better sense of the slow, visceral struggle that is any great artist's path to his or her best work. And Anfam's meticulous unearthing of nearly all of Rothko's literary and art historical sources for his imagery (or lack of imagery) reveals the contest between inclusiveness (that is, acknowledging the huge and multifarious culture of the human race) and exclusiveness (getting down to visual essentials) that was always a part of Rothko's work. -- The Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, Peter Plagens

David Anfam's Mark Rothko: The Works on Canvas is everything that a catalogue raisonne should be, and more besides. It is introduced by useful directives as to how the catalogue can best be used, and a brief discussion of the problems encountered in organising it. . . . In accordance with the wishes of Rothko's estate, discussion of individual works . . . is confined to the introductory essays. This means that the 836 images illustrated are allowed to speak entirely for themselves; of these 261 have never been exhibited, and 296 have never been hitherto reproduced. . . . The resulting tome is . . . beautifully produced and pleasing in format . . . We see Rothko the painter whole as never before. . . . This volume establishes Anfam as our greatest Rothko authority and is one of the most significant contributions to the history of twentieth-century art to have been made in recent years. -- John Golding, Burlington Magazine

Far and away the best monograph ever written on Rothko. -- Art Forum

Somewhere in this volume you can find just about everything you will want to know about what Rothko painted between 1924 and his death in 1970. -- The New York Times Book Review, John Russell

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 708 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (September 10, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300074891
• ISBN-13: 978-0300074895
• Product Dimensions: 12.3 x 12.2 x 2.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #768,613 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fan of Anfam's Rothko, March 2, 2000

By 

Robert Gibbons (Northeastern University, Boston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mark Rothko: The Works on Canvas (Hardcover)

Opening the package as it arrived from Amazon, easing this massive catalogue from its slipcase triggered a memory: walking to the edge of the Grand Canyon. With similar impact: awe. David Anfam brings the reader with him to encounter, view, & experience Rothko's work. His ten-year dedication paid off with the discovery of "lost" titles, setting the chronology of 836 works on canvas, (he couldn't have been afraid to get his hands dirty) & analyzing the slow struggle, sporadic leaps engendered by the painter in the evolution of the oeuvre. As scholar, teacher, critic, curator, & especially writer, Anfam proves the perfect choice to perform the daunting, almost impossible task of bringing Rothko into focus.

The author insightfully tracks the early representational beginnings, (his foray into narrative linked with crossing boundaries is totally appropriate for the artist from Dvinsk, Portland, New York) through the mythological (application of Kermode's distinction between "Chronos" & "Kairos" is utterly intriguing), & makes a case for Rembrandt as the source for Rothko's obsessions with tragedy & darkness, Vermeer his source for color's sensuality. Anfam traces in detail, using numerous examples of the brilliant reproductions, how the multiforms foreshadowed the work of the classic period. The architectural contexts for the Chapel are pure genius: Vincent Scully's, "The Earth, the Temple, & the Gods"; Joseph Rykwert's, "The Dancing Column"; & Leo Bersani's, Ulysse Dutoit's, "Arts of Impoverishment."

Anfam's breadth of vocabulary is English, yet he has benfitted from years in the States with a rapid, laconic language that impels the reader forward, informs succinctly. Purposely parrying time-worn quarrels, he unearths the more "thorny," "shady" aspects of dilemmas presented by such a complex art.

Two things happened as a result of reading MARK ROTHKO / THE WORKS on CANVAS / CATALOGUE RAISONNE. During a recent visit to C&M Gallery in NY for a show of eight Rothko's, alone in the second room, I heard them. A few nights ago I had a dream of a handwritten note on a table in the front room of an auction house that said, "The Last Painting." Rereading Helene Cixous's essay by that name (subtitled, "Or the Portrait of God"), she writes, "I think of the last Rembrandt. A man? Or a painting?" [in Cixous', "Coming to Writing and other Essays."] Anfam has presented us with the triumphant Rothko.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must for any Rothko fan., January 17, 2000

By 

LALance "LALance" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mark Rothko: The Works on Canvas (Hardcover)

This is the first publication with his entire collection of works on canvas. Even lost paintings are represented by old black and white photographs. The images are not large, but the quality of this book is wonderful. By far the best buy for any Rothko fan (besides an original...)

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is an invaluable study., September 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Mark Rothko: The Works on Canvas (Hardcover)

Anfam's study is a great deal more than a much-needed reference book. Anyone interested in the history of modern art would find this study illuminating and exciting. Not only does it provide the first complete catalogue of Rothko's paintings on canvas (almost all in gorgeous color reproduction), it also includes numerous fresh and original insights concerning Rothko's intellectual and artistic sources. A monumental scholarly achievement, this volume will long remain a model for the field.