Rothko: Pictures Must Be Miraculous

Born Marcus Rothkowitz in Dvinsk, Russia, on September 25, 1903, Rothko emigrated to Portland, Oregon, with his family at age 10. Learn more in this clip from American Masters —Rothko: Pictures Must Be Miraculous.

In post World War II New York City, a new group of artists including Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, & Clyfford Still started a movement known as Abstract Expressionism and took the art world by storm.

When a New York Times art critic reviewed Mark Rothko and Adolph Gottlieb's work, the artists responded with a letter that became a manifesto on abstract art. In it, they stressed being in favor of the "simple expression of the complex thought,” and for "the large shape because it has the impact of the unequivocal," among other points.