The idea of mail order brides from the Far East or Russia has become a bit of a cliché, but the fact is that there are still plenty of women who are desperate to move to western countries like the US and will do anything to get there – even marry someone they have only ever met on the internet.

Many people have a preconceived idea that these relationships involve hot Russian brides and unattractive western men with lots of cash, but this is not always the case. Yes, the women are usually very attractive and young, but the men who are interested in their services could just be lonely or too busy to take the time to meet someone in their own country. Perhaps they have been hurt in a relationship before and have heard that hot Russian brides are fiercely loyal to their partners.

This loyalty is just one of the many reasons that women from Russia are such a popular choice when it comes to online relationships. Often they have been brought up in very traditional homes where their mother and father have instilled into them the idea that the man is the head of the household and master over his wife. This does not mean that these beautiful women have no minds of their own, but that you can be assured that they will respect you as a husband and treat you with great kindness and affection.

There is little point in pretending that hot Russian brides are going online to find husbands than for any other reason than they want a better life than they can expect at home. The situation in Russia has not improved, for many people, since the days of Communism, and for many young and beautiful girls the idea of using their looks and charm to win a wealthy husband from the west seems like the ideal ticket out of their current situation.

Of course, many of them also dream of being romanced by their knight in shining armor, but each girl will always be eternally grateful to the man who takes her to America and who provides for her, and often for her family too. This does not mean that the man who marries a Russian bride can get away with uncouth and boorish behavior. These women will put up with a lot out of gratitude, but Russians can be very feisty too!

These stunning hot Russian brides have their pick of many interested men online, so it helps to be able to stand out in some way from the crowd. One way to impress the girl you are interested in is to learn some Russian. Although most speak English very well, being able to say a few words in her native tongue would be a great way of showing her how seriously you take the relationship and that you are willing to do everything you can to make her happy.

While the girls who use these sites are dreaming of romance, they are also practical. They know that their move to the US will mean big changes for both of you, but if you do what you can to make her feel comfortable while you are chatting, it will make her visits to America much more relaxing – and then you can spend the time she is over getting better acquainted before popping the all-important question.

Mature Russian Women

Smiling at the top of Delta Dental
Once, many years ago, Fay Donohue sat in a roomful of executives as part of an advisory group. When it came time to decide who would act as secretary for the meeting, all eyes turned to Donohue, the only woman in the room.

Why are Russian Women Really on InternationalLoveScout.com?

This is probably one of the most common questions that men wonder about the Russian and Ukrainian women on HotRussianBrides.com. It just seems too good to be true that so many gorgeous women are seeking husbands this way.

Are they being paid? Are they just out for a green card? No and no. Here’s some explanation as to why these women are really here.

 

They are seriously searching for love

Just like you are online to seek a perfect match, these Russian brides are too. Their mission is easily confused, since the term “mail order bride” still lingers and men think they can simply “add to cart” and their wife will be shipped to their door. The mail order bride concept has since transformed into global online dating. Russian women strongly believe in fate and they know their soul mate is out there somewhere. Just read some of their profiles.

They want more options

With so many more women than men in Russia and Ukraine, many of the single ladies have exhausted their dating options in their own country. Some Russian women feel they are more mature and family-oriented than their local men so they’ve decided to find a like-minded partner elsewhere. Dating men online allows them to chat and meet men they would have never had the opportunity in the past.

This is not a job for them

Many of the women on HotRussianBrides already have successful careers or are studying at the universities. Dating men online is a fun and pleasurable activity for them, not work. They are not getting paid for their time on the site, how long they chat with men, or for the gifts they receive. Even asking for money or gifts is a strict violation of the rules and any lady suspected of doing so is warned or removed.

Even if it still may be hard for you to believe that so many attractive, intellectual Russian and Ukrainian women are seeking their soulmates on HotRussianBrides.com, at least you’ve learned the truth behind the rumors. The only way to see if this experience can really match you up with your perfect Russian bride is to try it! You’ll discover these ladies true intentions in no time.

Russian Women Forum
A question for those who read Russian and write good English, can you translate this?

I am conversing with a woman in Moscow. Before anyone cautions me about romance scams, such warnings are appreciated but unneeded. You would be preaching to the choir so to speak. I am one of the guys who work with http://www.scamdigger.com/ and there sister website http://www.romancescam.com/forum/portal.php to bust scam artists, but I need help someone here can provide (I hope) Simply put I need the following translated. My Russian to English translation program cannot translate this. ТРЕНЕР- ПРЕПОДОВАТЕЛЬ Thanks.

Is that ТРЕНЕР- ПРЕПОДОВАТЕЛЬ you want to be translated?
Well, it’s misspelled russian for ‘teacher, tutor, instructor.’ This term is used for private classes tutors/teachers mostly, like self-help or self-improvement training classes and stuff like that. The teacher unaware of how to spell the word ‘teacher’ correctly, doesn’t seem to be such a good teacher to me by far.

Response about russian women scammers

A Trip to Russia & a Talk About Russian Marriage Agencies

Are you looking forward to living overseas or are you planning to get married to a Russian woman? If so, then you should be aware that what you expect may not be what you get. You should know right away that this marriage can turn out quite differently than even both of you expect.

 

Planning Your Trip To Russia

 

Make sure to look up as much information as possible before you visit to Russia. One very effective way to do this is to use the Internet. From there, you can find out about the culture and mentality, what can you expect from a Russian lady and what she can expects of you. You can use the search engines to find the relevant forums and communities of western men who are already married to a Russian or Ukrainian bride and are now living their lives successfully.

 

Through these forums, you can discuss the different matters that you have in your mind. You can learn about the different yet tasty food Russians have compared to your own. You can also learn more about the types of apartments they live, their traffic conditions, what they drive or do not drive, where you can exchange your money and even how you could buy different things at any supermarket. Using these forums/communities can give you endless amounts of information and prepare you so you do not suffer from a culture shock

 

For example, you will learn that a single Russian lady pays great attention to their looks and appearance. They also cook delicious food. The food, alone, tastes so good that the chances you will fall in love with a Russian lady are exponential. You will then understand the meaning of “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” A Russian custom is to invite vast amounts of people to the home and cook lots of tasty food. It should be noted that they like red roses flowers the best as well as French cologne.

 

You are probably wondering where to stay once you are in Russia. Since this is likely to be your first trip to the country, you need to think about where you would be staying at. Plus, what would you do while you are in the country. You can choose a hotel but there are rooms that are much better to stay at.

 

To find anything before you go, use the Internet. You can locate what you want and reserve it before the trip. With the use of the Internet, you can book an apartment for a specific amount of time. This can make you feel more at home and quite more comfortable with the space than a hotel room can provide. Unlike a hotel room, you can bring your Russian date back to the apartment so she can cook for your and herself. By living in an apartment, you can learn more about her and her about you.

 

Getting around Russia is not as hard as it may seem because you can hire a taxi for whenever you want. If you want (and this is typically best), book a tour with a Russian agency that can send you a visa, provide help in renting an apartment, provide the right advice and help you getting a local cell phone. All this is it is easier enjoy your visit and stay in Russia.

 

Locate a Russian Marriage Agency

 

If you want to find a marriage agency in Russia, you may be quite surprised to learn that some cities have more than one.

 

People of the West will call a marriage agency a “dating service” or even an “introduction service” but it all means the same thing in the end.

 

If you want a mail order bride, you may have to go through a local “dating service” to find the perfect one. Many women are registered with them and may not have a website. Sometimes you may have to go through more than one agency to find that woman of your dreams.

 

Some marriage agencies are going digital and have made a name for themselves across the world. Many of these agencies are non-Russian in origin but are still reliable and trustworthy to find you the girl of your dreams. A reliable agency, be it Russian or non-Russian will carry out all the formalities of your identity before they show you the details of prospective Russian women.

 

A marriage agency with integrity will keep its customers’ information private. All you will need to do is sign up via website so you can look at the Russian women registered, email the ones you are interested in and perhaps set up a meeting place to get introduced to one another. You can also find a Belarusian bride if you are interested.

Russian Women Seeking Men

Why Russian women seek husbands abroad?

Your amazing beauty completely satisfies every nuance of my being. The intensity of your soul shows in your eyes, the deep waters of spirit with you, a well from which your essence radiates through every realm. may your love be fulfilled with total satisfaction and confidence with the right man, the very one with whom you can become the True expression of all the highest potential your Creator intends.

Why Russian women seek husbands abroad?

The real and fundamental reason why women look for a life partner abroad is that they are not happy in their love life and cannot find a suitable partner in Russia. It’s that simple!

The demographic reason behind that is that there are 10 million more women in Russia than men, or only 88 men for 100 women. Some women are destined to stay single. Russian woman is to get married and have a family; this is the necessary condition of success for a woman

Russian women do not choose between Russian men and foreign men. They choose between staying single for life and having her own family.

Russian women want MARRIAGE, to love and be loved. Those words might feel worn out, but that is exactly what Russian women and Russian girls want – they want to be loved and respected by their husbands, and be able to love and respect their husbands in return. They are not looking just for a way out of Russia or a Green Card. They sincerely seek that special someone who will make their life complete – just like you do.

 

Russian Dating Questions:

Why are there so many Russian and Nigerian Scammer’s on Yahoo Personals with Fake Photos of women?

Everyone who contacts me there has a pic that doesn’t match text and they always give outside email addy and within days their profile has been deleted. I have traveled in Europe and know how Eastern Europea Women look as well as the countrysidesand their profiles only say ANY up and down what they seek in a man. FAKE I get bombarded with Yahoo IM’s from NigerianScammers or Russian Scammers

Unfortunately, these are all scam this is why you see them deleted within a short time.
You need to be very careful on Yahoo Personals and Any Dating Site. It’s not just Yahoo Personals that have these same problems. If it is too good to be true then it most likely isn’t true.
Just be careful!

Australian Open record full of out Serena Williams in Melbourne, Dec 11: Williams is the only big name missing Serena in the women's draw as at the Australian Open announced almost complete entry Saturday for the first Grand Slam of the season from 17 January.

Russian Women Bride

5 Myths About Russian Women

Different cultures always have preconceptions about each other. Hearing stories, gossip, and even real life examples help shape the ways people think about each other. Knowing and understanding the truth behind these 5 common myths will help begin your journey with the new hot Russian women on your horizon.

 

Russian women are shy, submissive housewives

A great benefit of having so many women to choose from is there are so many different personalities. Some women are more shy and introverted, while others are extremely outgoing and talkative. Many Russian women have highly set career goals and exciting life plans so don’t expect all Russian brides to be satisfied with the traditional housewife role. Of course there are ladies that would prefer that lifestyle as well. It’s all about the variety.

 

Russian women are prostitutes

Since Russian dating still uses the term “mail order bride”, it is easy to assume these women are for sale, and some men may associate that idea with prostitution. With so many beautiful women wanting to meet you, sex certainly comes to mind. Russian brides are not for sale; not their love, not their companionship, and definitely not their bodies. Russian women value themselves highly as do women all around the world. Some may choose a more sexual lifestyle, but most choose to find a mental and emotional connection and let the physical and intimate connections follow naturally.

 

Russian women hate Russian men

Since women are seeking love outside of their home country, they must hate their hometown heroes, the Russian men, right? Wrong. Hatred has nothing to do with their choice to seek an international love connection. There are many happy Russian couples. Many of the Russian brides searching for love abroad have had relationships with Russian men, but why not broaden the dating pool with new and interesting men from all over the globe? Russian women long to meet their Prince Charming, not matter which continent he happens to reside.

 

Russian women want money or a ticket out of Russia

Life in Russia is not as bad as some reports make it out to be. Russian women love their family and friends and make huge sacrifices when they decide to move away and begin a new life with a man. Russian women have worries about international dating just like men do. Everyone wants to advance themselves and reap the rewards of a better life. Finding that soul mate to share life with is one way towards that goal.

 

Russian women are high maintenance

Since they are so beautiful and always presentable, men think Russian women are probably high maintenance, taking many hours to get ready and requiring only the finest in perfumes and cosmetics. Yes it is true that Russian women put a great deal of pride in their appearance and they do take the time to look their best but they’re not overly extreme about it. Again this varies from person to person. Some ladies’ may frequent the grocery store without makeup while others would never dream of it. Talk to her, get to know her, and see if her personality and quirks will mesh with your own.

 

The best way to discover truths about myths and stereotypes is to ask… kindly. Be polite with your questioning so you don’t come off too skeptical or rude. Different cultures yield many differences but you will most likely be surprised just how much you and your Russian bride have in common. An open mind is certainly a prerequisite to the international dating experience so don’t let common generalizations about women prevent you from finding your perfect Russian bride.

Russian Dating Questions:

PREGNANCY: I am a Russian woman, new bride to USA. How can I breastfeed in public to USA? PELEASE HELP!?

how can a female breast feed in public place such as wal mart or go kart with my son? in russia, we do this all the time. no big deal. can I breast feed in USA?

Legally you can breastfeed anywhere, it is better if you buy a cover, your work must also provide an area, that is not a bathroom stall to allow you to breastfeed, there are some states that do not agree with this though, so check your local laws

9. December 2010 / Local News The new Orangeville City Council, with mostly familiar faces, solemnly sworn into office Monday in the opera house by Regional Senior Justice of the Peace John Creelman.

Latvian Women

Mark Rothko

Childhood

Mark Rothko (Marcus Rothkowitz, Mark Rotkovich) was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian Empire (now Daugavpils, Latvia). His father, Jacob Rothkowitz, was a pharmacist and an intellectual, who provided his children with a secular and political, rather than religious, upbringing. Unlike Jews in most cities of Czarist Russia, those in Dvinsk had been spared from violent outbreak of anti-Semitic pogroms. However, in an environment where Jews were often blamed for many of the evils that befell Russia, Rothko early childhood was plagued with fear.

Despite Jacob Rothkowitz’s modest income, the family was highly educated, and able to speak Russian, Yiddish and Hebrew. Following Jacob’s return to Orthodox Judaism, he sent Marcus, his youngest son, to the cheder at age 5, where he studied the Talmud although his elders had been educated in the public school system.

Emigration from Russia to the U.S.

Fearing that his sons were about to be drafted into the Czarist army, Jacob Rothkowitz emigrated from Russia to the United States, following the path of many other Jews who left Daugavpils in the wake of Cossack purges. These migrs included two of Jacob’s brothers, who managed to establish themselves as clothing manufacturers in Portland, Oregon, a common profession among Eastern European immigrants. Marcus remained in Russia with his mother and elder sister Sonia. They joined Jacob and the elder brothers later, arriving at Ellis Island in the winter of 1913 after twelve days at sea. Jacob’s death a few months later left the family without economic support. One of Marcus great aunts did unskilled labor, Sonia operated a cash register, while Marcus worked in one of his uncle warehouses, selling newspapers to employees.

Marcus started school in the United States in 1913, quickly accelerating from third to fifth grade, and completed the secondary level with honors at Lincoln High School in Portland, in June 1921 at the age of seventeen. He learned his fourth language, English, and became an active member of the Jewish community center, where he proved adept at political discussions. Like his father, Rothko was passionate about such issues as workers rights and women’s right to contraception.

He received a scholarship to Yale based on academic performance, but it has been suggested that Yale only made this offer in order to lure Rothko friend, Aaron Director, with a similar proposal. After one year, the scholarship ran out and Rothko took menial jobs to support his studies.

Rothko found the “WASP” Yale community to be elitist and racist. He and Aaron Director started a satirical magazine, The Yale Saturday Evening Pest, which lampooned the school stuffy, bourgeois attitude. Following his second year, Rothko dropped out, and did not return until he was awarded an honorary degree forty-six years later.

Early career

In the autumn of 1923, Rothko found work in New York’s garment district and took up residence on the Upper West Side. While visiting a friend at the Art Students League of New York, he saw students sketching a model. According to Rothko, this was the beginning of his life as an artist. Even his self-described “beginning” at the Art Students League of New York was not whole-hearted commitment; two months after he returned to Portland to visit his family, he joined a theater group run by Clark Gable wife, Josephine Dillon. Whatever his theatrical ability may have been, he did not have the appearance typically associated with successful commercial actors, and professional acting seemed an improbable career.

Returning to New York, Rothko briefly enrolled in the New School of Design, where one of his instructors was the artist Arshile Gorky. This was probably his first encounter with a member of the “avant-garde”. That autumn, he took courses at the Art Students League of New York taught by still-life artist Max Weber, who was also a Russian Jew. It was due to Weber that Rothko began to see art as a tool of emotional and religious expression, and Rothko paintings from this era portray a Weberian influence.

Rothko circle

Rothko move to New York established him in a fertile artistic atmosphere. Modernist painters had shows in the New York galleries, and the city museums were an invaluable resource to foster a budding artist knowledge, experience and skills. Among those early influences were the works of the German Expressionists, the surrealist work of Paul Klee, and the paintings of Georges Rouault. In 1928, Rothko had his own showing with a group of young artists at the appropriately named Opportunity Gallery. His paintings included dark, moody, expressionist interiors, as well as urban scenes, and were generally well accepted among critics and peers. Despite modest success, Rothko still needed to supplement his income, and in 1929 he began giving classes in painting and clay sculpture at the Center Academy, where he remained as teacher until 1952. During this time, he met Adolph Gottlieb, who, along with Barnett Newman, Joseph Solman, Louis Schanker, and John Graham, was part of a group of young artists surrounding the painter Milton Avery, fifteen years Rothko senior. Avery stylized, natural scenes, utilizing a rich knowledge of form and color, would be a tremendous influence on Rothko. His own paintings, soon after meeting Avery, began to use similar subject matter and color, as in Rothko 1933/34 Bathers, or Beach Scene.

Rothko, Gottlieb, Newman, Solman, Graham, and their mentor, Avery, spent considerable time together, vacationing at Lake George and Gloucester, Massachusetts, spending their days painting and their evenings discussing art. During a 1932 visit to Lake George, Rothko met Edith Sachar, a jewelry designer, who he married on November 12. The following summer, Rothko first one-man show was held at the Portland Art Museum, consisting mostly of drawings and aquarelles, as well as the works of Rothko pre-adolescent students from the Center Academy. His family was unable to understand Rothko decision to be an artist, especially considering the dire economic situation of the Depression. Having suffered serious financial setbacks, the Rothkowitzes were mystified by Rothko seeming indifference to financial necessity; they felt he was doing his mother a disservice by not finding a more lucrative and realistic career.

First one-man show in New York

Returning to New York, Rothko had his first East Coast one-man show at the Contemporary Arts Gallery. He showed fifteen oil paintings, mostly portraits, along with some aquarelles and drawings. It was the oils that would capture the critics eye; Rothko use of rich fields of colors showed a master touch, and moved beyond the influence of Avery. In late 1935, Rothko joined with Ilya Bolotowsky, Ben-Zion, Adolph Gottlieb, Lou Harris, Ralph Rosenborg, Louis Schanker and Joseph Solman to form “The Ten” (Whitney Ten Dissenters), whose mission (according to a catalog from a 1937 Mercury Gallery show) was “to protest against the reputed equivalence of American painting and literal painting.” Rothko’s style was already evolving in the direction of his renowned later works, yet, despite this newfound exploration of color, Rothko turned his attention to another formal and stylistic innovation, inaugurating a period of surrealist paintings influenced by mythological fables and symbols. He was earning a growing reputation among his peers, particularly among the group who formed the Artists’ Union. Begun in 1937, and including Gottlieb and Soloman, their plan was to create a municipal art gallery to show self-organized group exhibitions. The Artists’ Union was a cooperative which brought together resources and talent of various artists to create an atmosphere of mutual admiration and self-promotion. In 1936, the group showed at the Galerie Bonaparte in France. Then, in 1938, a show was held at the Mercury Gallery, in direct defiance of the Whitney Museum, which the group regarded as having a provincial, regionalist agenda. It was also during this period that Rothko, like many artists, found employment with the Works Progress Administration, a labor relief agency created under Roosevelt New Deal in response to the economic crisis. As the Depression waned, Rothko continued on in government service, working for TRAP, an agency that employed artists, architects and laborers in the restoration and renovation of public buildings. Many other important artists were also employed by TRAP, including Avery, DeKooning, Pollock, Reinhardt, David Smith, Louise Nevelson, eight of the “Ten” artists of the dissenter group, and Rothko old teacher, Arshile Gorky.

Development of style

In 1936, Rothko began writing a book, never completed, about similarities in the art of children and the work of modern painters. According to Rothko, the work of modernists, influenced by primitive art, could be compared to that of children in that “child art transforms itself into primitivism, which is only the child producing a mimicry of himself.” In this manuscript, he observed that “the fact that one usually begins with drawing is already academic. We start with color.”

The modernist artist, like the child and the primitive by whom he is influenced, expresses an innate feeling for form that is, in the best and most universal work, expressed without mental interference. It is a physical and emotional, non-intellectual experience. Rothko was using fields of color in his aquarelles and city scenes, and his subject matter and form at this time had become non-intellectual.

Rothko’s work matured from representation and mythological subjects into rectangular fields of color and light, that later culminated or self-destructed in his final works for the Rothko Chapel. However, between the primitivist and playful urban scenes and aquarelles of the early period, and the late, transcendent fields of color, was a period of transition. It was a rich and complex milieu which included two important events in Rothko life: the onset of World War II, and his reading of Friedrich Nietzsche.

Maturity

Rothko separated from his wife, Edith Sachar, in the summer of 1937, following Edith increased success in the jewelry business. Rothko helped with his wife’s business, and did not enjoy it. At this time, Rothko was, in comparison, a financial failure. He and Sachar reconciled several months later, yet their relationship remained tense. On February 21, 1938, Rothko finally became a citizen of the United States, prompted by fears that the growing Nazi influence in Europe might provoke sudden deportation of American Jews.

In a related political development, following the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939, Rothko, along with Avery, Gottlieb, and others, left the American Artists Congress in order to dissociate themselves from the Congress alignment with radical Communism. In June, Rothko and a number of other artists formed the Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors. Their aim was to keep their art free from political propaganda. A rise of Nazi sympathy in the United States heightened Rothko’s fears of anti-Semitism, and in January 1940, he abbreviated his name from “Marcus Rothkowitz” to “Mark Rothko”. The name “Roth,” a common abbreviation, had become, as a result of its commonality, identifiably Jewish, therefore he settled upon “Rothko”.

Inspiration from mythology

Fearing that modern American painting had reached a conceptual dead end, Rothko was intent upon exploring subjects other than urban and natural scenes. He sought subjects that would complement his growing concern with form, space, and color. The world crisis of war lent this search an immediacy, because he insisted that the new subject matter be of social impact, yet able to transcend the confines of current political symbols and values. In his essay, “The Romantics Were Prompted,” published in 1949, Rothko argued that the “archaic artist … found it necessary to create a group of intermediaries, monsters, hybrids, gods and demigods” in much the same way that modern man found intermediaries in Fascism and the Communist Party. For Rothko, “without monsters and gods, art cannot enact a drama.”

Rothko use of mythology as a commentary on current history was not novel. Rothko, Gottlieb, and Newman read and discussed the works of Freud and Jung, in particular their theories concerning dreams and the archetypes of the collective unconscious, and understood mythological symbols as images that refer to themselves, operating in a space of human consciousness that transcends specific history and culture. Rothko later said his artistic approach was “reformed” by his study of the “dramatic themes of myth.” He apparently stopped painting altogether for the length of 1940, and read Freud Interpretation of Dreams and Frazer Golden Bough.

Influence of Nietzsche

Rothko new vision would attempt to address modern man spiritual and creative mythological requirements. The most crucial philosophical influence on Rothko in this period was Friedrich Nietzsche The Birth of Tragedy. Nietzsche claimed that Greek tragedy had the function of the redemption of man from the terrors of mortal life. The exploration of novel topics in modern art ceased to be Rothko goal; from this point on, his art would bear the ultimate aim of relieving modern man spiritual emptiness. He believed that this “emptiness” was created partly by the lack of a mythology, which could, as described by Nietzsche,”[address]… the growth of a child mind and – to a mature man his life and struggles”.

Rothko believed that his art could free the unconscious energies previously liberated by mythological images, symbols, and rituals. He considered himself a “mythmaker,” and proclaimed “the exhilarated tragic experience,is for me the only source of art.”

Many of his paintings of this period contrast barbaric scenes of violence with those of civilized passivity, with imagery drawn primarily from Aeschylus Oresteia trilogy. In his 1942 painting, The Omen of the Eagle, the archetypal images of, in Rothko words, “man, bird, beast and tree … merge into a single tragic idea.” The bird, an eagle, was not without contemporary historical relevance, as both the United States and Germany (in its claim to inheritance of the Holy Roman Empire) used the eagle as a national symbol. Rothko cross-cultural, trans-historical reading of myth perfectly addresses the psychological and emotional roots of the symbol, making it universally available to anyone who might wish to see it. A list of the titles of the paintings from this period is illustrative of Rothko use of myth: Antigone, Oedipus, The Sacrifice of Iphigenia, Leda, The Furies, Altar of Orpheus. Judeo-Christian imagery is evoked: Gethsemane, The Last Supper, Rites of Lilith, as are Egyptian (Room in Karnak) and Syrian (The Syrian Bull). Soon after the war, Rothko felt his titles were limiting the larger, transcendent aims of his paintings, and so removed them altogether.

“Mythomorphic” Abstractionism

At the root of Rothko and Gottlieb presentation of archaic forms and symbols as subject matter illuminating modern existence had been the influence of Surrealism, Cubism, and abstract art. In 1936, Rothko attended two exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, “Cubism and Abstract Art,” and “Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism,” which greatly influenced his celebrated 1938 Subway Scene.

In 1942, following the success of shows by Ernst, Mir, Tanguy, and Salvador Dal, who had immigrated to the United States because of the war, Surrealism took New York by storm. Rothko and his peers, Gottlieb and Newman, met and discussed the art and ideas of these European pioneers, especially those of Mondrian. They began to regard themselves as heirs to the European avant-garde.

With mythic form as a catalyst, they would merge the two European styles of Surrealism and abstraction. As a result, Rothko work became increasingly abstract; perhaps ironically, Rothko himself described the process as being one toward “clarity.”

New paintings were unveiled at a 1942 show at Macy department store in New York City. In response to a negative review by the New York Times, Rothko and Gottlieb issued a manifesto (written mainly by Rothko) which stated, in response to the Times critic self-professed “befuddlement” over the new work,

We favor the simple expression of the complex thought. We are for the large shape because it has the impact of the unequivocal. We wish to reassert the picture plane. We are for flat forms because they destroy illusion and reveal truth.

Rothko’s vision of myth as a replenishing resource for an era of spiritual void had been set in motion decades before, by his reading of Carl Jung, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce and Thomas Mann, among others. Unlike his predecessors, Rothko would, in his later period, develop his philosophy of the tragic ideal into the realm of pure abstraction. He thereby questioned the possibility for mankind to transform a cradle of imagery into a new set of images, no longer dependent on tribal, archaic, and religious mythologies the very symbols Rothko had utilized and struggled with during his middle period.

Break with Surrealism

On June 13, 1943, Rothko and Sachar separated again. Rothko suffered a long depression following their divorce. Thinking that a change of scenery might help, Rothko returned to Portland. From there he traveled to Berkeley, where he met artist Clyfford Still, and the two began a close friendship. Still deeply abstract paintings would be of considerable influence on Rothko later works. In the autumn of 1943, Rothko returned to New York, where he met noted collector Peggy Guggenheim. Her assistant, Howard Putzel, convinced Guggenheim to show Rothko in her The Art of This Century Gallery. Rothko one-man show at Guggenheim’s gallery, in late 1945, resulted in few sales (prices ranging from $150 to $750), and in less-than-favorable reviews. During this period, Rothko had been stimulated by Still abstract landscapes of color, and his style shifted away from surrealism. Rothko’s experiments in interpreting the unconscious symbolism of everyday forms had run their course. His future lay with abstraction:

I insist upon the equal existence of the world engendered in the mind and the world engendered by God outside of it. If I have faltered in the use of familiar objects, it is because I refuse to mutilate their appearance for the sake of an action which they are too old to serve, or for which perhaps they had never been intended. I quarrel with surrealists and abstract art only as one quarrels with his father and mother; recognizing the inevitability and function of my roots, but insistent upon my dissent; I, being both they, and an integral completely independent of them.

Rothko’s 1945 masterpiece, “Slow Swirl at Edge of Sea” illustrates his newfound propensity towards abstraction. Sometimes it is interpreted as a meditation on Rothko courtship of his second wife, Mary Ellen Beistle, who he met in 1944, and married in the spring of 1945. The painting presents two humanlike forms embraced in a swirling, floating atmosphere of shapes and colors, in subtle grays and browns. The rigid rectangular background foreshadows Rothko later experiments in pure color. The painting was completed, not coincidentally, in the year the Second World War ended.

Despite the abandonment of his “Mythomorphic Abstractionism” (as described by ARTnews), Rothko would still be recognized by the public primarily for his “Surrealist” works, for the remainder of the 1940s. The Whitney Museum included them in their annual exhibit of Contemporary Art from 1943 to 1950.

Rothko’s “multiforms”

The year 1946 saw the creation of Rothko transitional “multiform” paintings. In viewing the catalogue raisonn, one can recognize the gradual metamorphosis from surrealistic, myth-influenced paintings of the early part of the decade to the highly abstract, Clyfford Still-influenced forms of pure color. The term “multiform” has been applied by art critics; this word was never used by Rothko himself, yet it is an accurate description of these paintings. Several of them, including No. 18 (1948) and Untitled (also 1948), are masterpieces in their own right. Rothko himself described these paintings as possessing a more organic structure, and as self-contained units of human expression. For Rothko, these blurred blocks of various colors, devoid of landscape or human figure, let alone myth and symbol, possessed their own life force. They contained a “breath of life” he found lacking in most figurative painting of the era. This new form seemed filled with possibility, whereas his experimentation with mythological symbolism had become a tired formula, in much the same way as he viewed his late 1930 experiments in urban settings. The “multiforms” brought Rothko to a realization of his mature, signature style, and was the only style Rothko would never fully abandon prior to his death.

Rothko, in the middle of a crucial period of transition, had been impressed by Clyfford Still abstract fields of color, which were influenced in part by the landscapes of Still native North Dakota. In 1947, during a summer semester teaching at the California School of Fine Art, Rothko and Still flirted with the idea of founding their own curriculum, and they realized the idea in New York in the following year. Named “The Subjects of the Artists School,” they employed David Hare and Robert Motherwell, among others. Though the group was short-lived and separated later in the same year, the school was the center of a flurry of activity in contemporary art. In addition to his teaching experience, Rothko began to contribute articles to two new art publications, “Tiger Eye” and “Possibilities”. Using the forums as an opportunity to assess the current art scene, Rothko also discussed in detail his own artwork and philosophy of art. These articles reflect the elimination of figurative elements from his work. He described his new method as “unknown adventures in an unknown space,” free from “direct association with any particular, and the passion of organism.”

In 1949, Rothko became fascinated by Matisse Red Studio, acquired by the Museum of Modern Art that year. He later credited it as a key source of inspiration for his later abstract paintings.

Late period

Soon, the “multiforms” developed into the signature style; by early 1949 Rothko exhibited these new works at the Betty Parsons Gallery. For critic Harold Rosenberg, the paintings were nothing short of a revelation. Rothko had, after painting his first “multiform,” secluded himself to his home in East Hampton on Long Island. He invited only a select few, including Rosenberg, to view the new paintings. The discovery of his definitive form came at a period of great distress to the artist; his mother Kate died in October 1948. It was at some point during that winter that Rothko happened upon the striking symmetrical rectangular blocks of two to three opposing or contrasting, yet complementary, colors. Additionally, for the next seven years, Rothko painted in oil only on large canvases with vertical formats. Very large-scale designs were used in order to overwhelm the viewer, or, in Rothko words, to make the viewer feel “enveloped within” the painting. For some critics, the large size was an attempt to make up for a lack of substance. In retaliation, Rothko stated:

I realize that historically the function of painting large pictures is painting something very grandiose and pompous. The reason I paint them, however . . . is precisely because I want to be very intimate and human. To paint a small picture is to place yourself outside your experience, to look upon an experience as a stereopticon view or with a reducing glass. However you paint the larger picture, you are in it. It isn something you command!

He even went so far as to recommend that a viewer position themselves as little as 18 inches away from the canvas so that the viewer might experience a sense of intimacy, as well as awe, a transcendence of the individual, and a sense of the unknown.

As Rothko achieved success, he became increasingly protective of his works, turning down several potentially important sales and exhibition opportunities.

A picture lives by companionship, expanding and quickening in the eyes of the sensitive observer. It dies by the same token. It is therefore a risky and unfeeling act to send it out into the world. How often it must be permanently impaired by the eyes of the vulgar and the cruelty of the impotent who would extend the affliction universally!

 

Mark Rothko

Again, Rothko aims, in some critics and viewers estimation, exceeded his methods. Many of the abstract expressionists exhibited pretensions for something approximating a spiritual experience, or at least an experience that exceeded the boundaries of the purely aesthetic. In later years, Rothko emphasized the spiritual aspect of his artwork, a sentiment that would culminate in the construction of the Rothko Chapel.

Many of the “multiforms” and early signature paintings display an affinity for bright, vibrant colors, particularly reds and yellows, expressing energy and ecstasy. By the mid 1950 however, close to a decade after the completion of the first “multiforms,” Rothko began to employ dark blues and greens; for many critics of his work this shift in colors was representative of a growing darkness within Rothko personal life.

The general method for these paintings was to apply a thin layer of binder mixed with pigment directly onto uncoated and untreated canvas, and to paint significantly thinned oils directly onto this layer, creating a dense mixture of overlapping colors and shapes. His brush strokes were fast and light, a method he would continue to use until his death. His increasing adeptness at this method is apparent in the paintings completed for the Chapel. With a total lack of figurative representation, what drama there is to be found in a late Rothko is in the contrast of colors, radiating, as it were, against one another. His paintings can then be likened to a sort of fugal arrangement: each variation counterpoised against one another, yet all existing within one architectonic structure.

Rothko used several original techniques that he tried to keep secret even from his assistants. Electron microscopy and ultraviolet analysis conducted by the MOLAB showed that he employed natural substances such as egg and glue, as well as artificial materials including acrylic resins, phenol formaldehyde, modified alkyd, and others . One of his objectives was to make the various layers of the painting dry quickly, without mixing of colors, such that he could soon create new layers on top of the earlier ones.

European travels

Rothko and his wife visited Europe for five months in early 1950. The last time he had been in Europe was during his childhood in Latvia, at that time part of Russia. Yet he did not return to his motherland, preferring to visit the important museums of England, France and Italy. He much admired European art, and he visited the major museums of Paris. Besides viewing many paintings, the architecture and the music of Europe left a deep impression on Rothko. The frescoes of Fra Angelico in the monastery of San Marco at Florence most impressed him. Angelico intimately bright tempera frescoes magnificently contrast with the grandeur and monastic serenity of the surrounding architecture. Certainly the spirituality and concentration on light appealed to Rothko sensibilities, as did Angelico economic circumstances, which Rothko saw as similar to his own, having always been forced to struggle to exist as an artist.

Of Angelico, Rothko stated “As an artist you have to be a thief and steal a place for yourself on the rich man wall.” He felt he was still struggling, despite some promising developments, including the sale of a painting for one thousand dollars to Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III and the purchase of “Number 10″ (1950) for the Museum of Modern Art.

Rothko had one-man shows at the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1950 and 1951, and at other galleries across the world, including Japan, So Paulo and Amsterdam. The 1952 “Fifteen Americans” show curated by Dorothy Canning Miller at the Museum of Modern Art formally heralded the abstract artists, including works by Jackson Pollock and William Baziotes. It also created a dispute between Rothko and Barnett Newman, after Newman accused Rothko of having attempted to exclude him from the show. Growing success as a group led to infighting, and claims to supremacy and leadership. When “Fortune” magazine named a Rothko painting as a good investment, Newman and Still, out of jealousy, branded him a sell-out, secretly possessing bourgeois aspirations. Still wrote to Rothko to request the paintings he had given Rothko over the years. Rothko was deeply depressed by his former friends jealousy.

During the 1950 Europe trip, Rothko’s wife became pregnant. On December 30, when they were back in New York, she gave birth to a daughter, Kathy Lynn, called “Kate” in honor of Rothko mother.

Reactions to his own increasing success

Shortly thereafter, due to the Fortune magazine plug and further purchases by clients, Rothko financial situation began to improve. In addition to sales of paintings, he also had money from his teaching position at Brooklyn College. In 1954, he exhibited in a solo show at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he met art dealer Sidney Janis, who also represented Pollock and Franz Kline. Their relationship proved mutually beneficial.

Despite his fame, Rothko felt a growing personal seclusion, and a sense of being misunderstood as an artist. He feared that people purchased his paintings simply out of fashion, and that the true purpose of his work was not being grasped by collectors, audiences or critics. He wanted his paintings to move beyond abstraction, as well as beyond classical art. For Rothko, the paintings were objects that possessed their own form and potential, and therefore, must be encountered as such. Sensing the futility of words in describing this decidedly non-verbal aspect of his work, Rothko abandoned all attempts at responding to those that might inquire after its meaning and purpose, stating finally that silence is “so accurate.” His paintings “surfaces are expansive and push outward in all directions, or their surfaces contract and rush inward in all directions. Between these two poles you can find everything I want to say.”

He began to insist that he was not an abstractionist, and that such a description was as inaccurate as labeling him a great colorist. His interest was:

only in expressing basic human emotions tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on. And the fact that a lot of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I can communicate those basic human emotions . . . The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them. And if you, as you say, are moved only by their color relationship, then you miss the point.

For Rothko, color is “merely an instrument.” The “multiforms” and the signature paintings are, in essence, the same expression of “basic human emotions,” as his surrealistic mythological paintings, albeit in a more pure form. What is common among these stylistic innovations is a concern for “tragedy, ecstasy and doom.” Rothko comment on viewers breaking down in tears before his paintings that may have convinced the De Menils to construct the Rothko Chapel. Whatever Rothko feeling about the audience or the critical establishment interpretation of his work, it is apparent that, by 1958, the spiritual expression he meant to portray on canvas was growing increasingly dark. His bright reds, yellows and oranges were subtly transformed into dark blues, greens, grays and blacks.

Seagram Murals / Four Seasons Restaurant artistic commission

In 1958, Rothko was awarded the first of two major mural commissions that proved both rewarding and frustrating. The beverage company Joseph Seagram and Sons had recently completed their new building on Park Avenue, designed by architects Mies Van der Rohe and Philip Johnson. Rothko agreed to provide paintings for the building new luxury restaurant, The Four Seasons.

For Rothko, this commission presented a new challenge for it was the first time he was required not only to design a coordinated series of paintings, but to produce an artwork space concept for a large, specific interior. Over the following three months, Rothko completed forty paintings, three full series in dark red and brown. He altered his horizontal format to vertical to complement the restaurant vertical features: columns, walls, doors and windows.

The following June, Rothko and his family again traveled to Europe. While on the SS Independence he disclosed to John Fischer, publisher of Harper’s, that his true intention for the Seagram murals was to paint “something that will ruin the appetite of every son-of-a-bitch who ever eats in that room. If the restaurant would refuse to put up my murals, that would be the ultimate compliment. But they won. People can stand anything these days.”

While in Europe, the Rothkos traveled to Rome, Florence, Venice and Pompeii. In Florence, he visited the library at San Lorenzo, to see first-hand the library Michelangelo room, from which he drew further inspiration for the murals. He remarked that the “room had exactly the feeling that I wanted [...] it gives the visitor the feeling of being caught in a room with the doors and windows walled-in shut.” Following the trip to Italy, the Rothkos voyaged to Paris, Brussels, Antwerp and Amsterdam, before returning to the United States.

Once back in New York, Rothko and wife Mell visited the near-completed Four Seasons restaurant. Upset with the restaurant dining atmosphere, which he considered pretentious and inappropriate for the display of his works, Rothko immediately refused to continue the project, and returned the commission cash advance to the Seagram and Sons Company. Seagram had intended to honor Rothko’s emergence to prominence through his selection, and his breach of contract and public expression of outrage were unexpected.

Rothko kept the commissioned paintings in storage until 1968. Given that Rothko had known in advance about the luxury decor of the restaurant and the social class of its future patrons, the exact motives for his abrupt repudiation remain mysterious. Rothko never fully explained his conflicted emotions over the incident, which exemplified his temperamental personality. The final series of Seagram Murals was dispersed and now hangs in three locations: London Tate Modern, Japan Kawamura Memorial Museum and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Rising prominence in the United States

Rothko first completed space was created in the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., following the purchase of four paintings by collector Duncan Phillips. Rothko fame and wealth had substantially increased; his paintings began to sell to notable collectors, including the Rockefellers. In January 1961, Rothko sat next to Joseph Kennedy at John F. Kennedy inaugural ball. Later that year, a retrospective of his work was held at the Museum of Modern Art, to considerable commercial and critical success. In spite of this newfound notoriety, the art world had already turned its attention from the now pass abstract expressionists to the “next big thing”, Pop Art, particularly the work of Warhol, Lichtenstein, and Rosenquist.

Rothko labeled Pop-Art artists “charlatans and young opportunists”, and wondered aloud during a 1962 exhibition of Pop Art, “are the young artists plotting to kill us all?” On viewing Jasper Johns’ flags, Rothko said, “we worked for years to get rid of all that.” It was not that Rothko could not accept being replaced, so much as an inability to accept what was replacing him. He found it valueless, though it received much admiration as collectors sold off their Rothkos, Newmans and Gottliebs and replaced them with Rauschenbergs, and staged retrospectives of artists then in their mid-twenties.

Rothko received a second mural commission project, this time a wall of paintings for the penthouse of Harvard University Holyoke Center. He made twenty-two sketches, from which five murals were completed  a triptych and two wall paintings. Harvard President Nathan Pusey, following an explanation of the religious symbology of the Triptych, had the paintings hung in January 1963, and later shown at the Guggenheim. During installation, Rothko found the paintings to be compromised by the room lighting. Despite the installation of fiberglass shades, the paintings were removed and, having been weakened by sunlight, were stored in a dark room. As with the Seagram Mural, the Harvard Mural would remain incomplete.

On August 31, 1963, Mell gave birth to a second child, Christopher. That autumn, Rothko signed with the Marlborough Gallery for sales of his work outside the United States. Stateside, he continued to sell the artwork directly from his studio. Bernard Reis, Rothko financial advisor, was also, unbeknownst to the artist, the Gallery accountant and, together with his co-workers, were later responsible for one of art history largest scandals.

The Rothko Chapel

The Rothko Chapel is located adjacent to the Menil Collection and The University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. The building is small, windowless, and unassuming. It is a geometric, “postmodern” structure, located in a turn-of-the-century middle-class Houston neighborhood. The Chapel, the Menil Collection, and the nearby Cy Twombly gallery were funded by Texas oil millionaires John and Dominique de Menil.

In 1964, Rothko moved into his last New York studio at 157 East 69th Street, equipping the studio with pulleys carrying large walls of canvas material to regulate light from a central cupola, to simulate lighting he planned for the Rothko Chapel. Despite warnings about the difference in light between New York and Texas, Rothko persisted with the experiment, setting to work on the canvases. Rothko told friends he intended the Chapel to be his single most important artistic statement. He became considerably involved in the layout of the building, insisting that it feature a central cupola like that of his studio. Architect Philip Johnson, unable to compromise with Rothko vision, left the project in 1967, and was replaced with Howard Barnstone and Eugene Aubry. The architects frequently flew to New York to consult, and on one occasion brought with them a miniature of the building for Rothko’s approval.

For Rothko, the Chapel was to be a destination, a place of pilgrimage far from the center of art (in this case, New York) where seekers of Rothko newly “religious” artwork could journey. This implied an already sympathetic audience in an increasingly indifferent postmodernist art market. Initially, the Chapel, now non-denominational, was to be specifically Roman Catholic, and during the first three years of the project (196467) Rothko believed it would remain so. Thus Rothko design of the building and the religious implications of the paintings were inspired by Roman Catholic art and architecture. Its octagonal shape is based on the Byzantine church of St. Maria Assunta, and the format of the triptychs is based on paintings of the Crucifixion.

It was an odd commission for a secular Jew. However, the De Menils believed the universal “spiritual” aspect of Rothko work would complement the elements of Roman Catholicism. Rothko willingness may have been related to a sense of persecution he felt from the art world, in the years up to and including the Chapel. What is clear is that the Chapel paintings are the nadir of “darkness and impenetrability” that viewers increasingly encountered in his work in the late 1950 and early 1960.

Rothko painting technique required considerable physical stamina that the ailing artist was no longer able to muster. To create the paintings he envisioned, Rothko was forced to hire two assistants to apply the chestnut-brown paint in quick strokes of several layers: “brick reds, deep reds, black mauves.” On half of the works, Rothko applied none of the paint himself, and was for the most part content to supervise the slow, arduous process. He felt the completion of the paintings to be “torment” and the inevitable result was to create “something you don want to look at.”

The Chapel is the culmination of six years of Rothko life and represents his gradually growing concern for the transcendent. For some, to witness these paintings is to submit one self to a spiritual experience, which, through its transcendence of subject matter, approximates that of consciousness itself. It forces one to approach the limits of experience and awakens one to the awareness of one own existence. For others, the Chapel houses 14 large paintings whose dark, nearly impenetrable surfaces represent hermeticism and self-absorption.

The Chapel paintings consist of a monochrome triptych in soft brown on the central wall (three 5-by-15-foot panels), and a pair of triptychs on the left and right made of opaque black rectangles. Between the triptychs are four individual paintings (11 by 15 feet each), and one additional individual painting faces the central triptych from the opposite wall. The effect is to surround the viewer with massive, imposing visions of darkness. Despite its basis in religious symbolism (the triptych) and less-than-subtle imagery (the crucifixion), the paintings are difficult to attach specifically to traditional Christian symbolism, and may act on the viewers subliminally. Active spiritual or aesthetic inquiry may be elicited from the viewer in the same way as a religious icon having specific symbolism. In this way, Rothko erasure of symbols both removes and creates barriers to the work.

As it turned out, these works would be his final artistic statement to the world. They were finally unveiled at the Chapel opening in 1971. Rothko never saw the completed Chapel and never installed the paintings. On February 28, 1971, at the dedication, Dominique De Menil said, “We are cluttered with images and only abstract art can bring us to the threshold of the divine,” noting Rothko courage in painting what might be called “impenetrable fortresses” of color. The drama for many critics of Rothko work is the uneasy position of the paintings between, as Chase notes, “nothingness or vapidity” and “dignified ute icons offering he only kind of beauty we find acceptable today.”

Suicide and aftermath

In the spring of 1968, Rothko was diagnosed with a mild aneurysm (tissue weakness that can lead to instant death) of the aorta, a result of his chronic high blood pressure. Ignoring doctor orders, Rothko continued to drink and smoke heavily, avoided exercise, and maintained an unhealthy diet. However, he did follow physician advice not to paint pictures larger than a yard in height, and turned his attention to smaller, less physically strenuous formats, including acrylics on paper. Meanwhile, Rothko’s marriage had become increasingly troubled, and his poor health and impotence resulting from the aneurysm compounded his feeling of estrangement in the relationship. Rothko and his wife Mell separated on New Year Day 1969, and he moved into his studio.

On February 25, 1970, Oliver Steindecker, Rothko assistant, found the artist in his kitchen, lying dead on the floor in front of the sink, covered in blood. He had sliced his arms with a razor found lying at his side. During autopsy it was discovered he had also overdosed on anti-depressants. He was 66 years old. The Seagram Murals on display at the Tate Gallery arrived in London on the very day of his suicide.

Shortly before his death, Rothko and his financial advisor, Bernard Reis, had created a foundation intended to fund “research and education” that would receive the bulk of Rothko work following his death. Reis later sold the paintings to the Marlborough Gallery at substantially reduced values, and then split the subsequent profits from sales to customers with Gallery representatives. In 1971, Rothko children filed a lawsuit against Reis, Morton Levine, and Theodore Stamos, the executors of his estate, over the sham sales. The lawsuit continued for more than 10 years. In 1975, the defendants were found liable for negligence and conflict of interest, were removed as executors of the Rothko estate by court order, and, along with Marlborough Gallery, were required to pay a $9.2 million damages judgment to the estate. This amount represents merely a very small fraction of the eventual vast financial value achieved since then for collectors and exhibitors of the numerous Rothko works produced in his lifetime.

Rothko’s remains were first buried in East Marion Cemetery on the North Fork of Long Island, New York, in a plot belonging to Stamos, an artist who had been a friend of Rothko. Beginning in 2006, Rothko’s children, Dr. Kate Rothko Prizel, and her brother, Christopher Rothko, sought to disinter Rothko’s remains and reinter them, together with his wife’s remains, in Sharon Gardens in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. In April 2008, Justice Arthur G. Pitts of the New York State Supreme Court agreed to permit the transfer of Rothko’s remains. The plan was approved by Georgianna Savas, executor of the estate of Stamos.

Legacy

The settlement of his estate became the subject of the famous Rothko Case.

In early November, 2005, Rothko’s 1953 oil on canvas painting, Homage to Matisse, broke the record selling price of any post-war painting at a public auction, at US$ 22.5 million dollars.

In May 2007, Rothko’s 1950 painting White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose), broke this record again, selling at US$ 72.8 million dollars at Sotheby’s New York. The painting was sold by philanthropist David Rockefeller, who attended the auction.

A previously unpublished manuscript by Rothko about his philosophies on art, entitled The Artist’s Reality, has been edited by his son, Christopher Rothko, and was published by Yale University Press in 2006.

‘Red’, a play based on Rothko, written by John Logan, opened at the Donmar Warehouse, London, on December 3, 2009. The play centers around the period of development of the Seagram Murals. Alfred Molina plays Rothko. It is directed by the Donmar’s Artistic Director Michael Grandage.

Beginning March 14, 2010, ‘Red’ will move to the John Golden Theater on Broadway in New York City with the same star and director.

References

^ Stigler, Stephen M., “Aaron Director Remembered”. 48 J. Law and Econ. 307, 2005.

^ PORT

^ Mark Rothko by Weiss et al., p262, http://books.google.com/books?id=tkHi9AFiLcwC&pg=RA1-PA262&dq=stand+close+Rothko&ei=MG4OSNnZOojYyATQxNS1Ag&sig=dUdDgCWi-tgcmAl3H7sGPGBiL1M#PRA1-PA262,M1

^ Abstract Expressionism, by Barbara Hess, Taschen, 2005, pg 42

^ Jane Qiu. Nature 456, 447 (27 November 2008) | doi:10.1038/456447a; Published online 26 November 2008, http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v456/n7221/full/456447a.html

^ Tate Modern, Rothko Murals retrieved October 4 2008

^

^ (case cite 372 N.E.2d 291)

^ Rothko Kin Sue to Transfer His Remains

^ 38 Years After Artist Suicide, His Remains Are on the Move

^ Rothko’s Remains to Be Moved, ARTINFO, April 16, 2008, http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/27350/rothkos-remains-to-be-moved/, retrieved 2008-04-23 

^ Huge bids smash modern art record BBC News

^ The Artist’s Reality Yale University Press

^

^ http://www.newyorkcitytheatre.com/theaters/johngoldentheater/theater.php

Sources

Chave, Anne. Mark Rothko, 1903-1970: A Retrospective. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.

Breslin, J.E.B. Mark Rothko – A Biography, Chicago, London, University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Rothko, Mark (1999). The Individual and the Social. In Harrison, Charles & Paul Wood (Eds.), Art in Theory 1900-1990 An Anthology of Changing Ideas (563-565). Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, Ltd.

Marika Herskovic, American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey, (New York School Press, 2003.) ISBN 0-9677994-1-4

Bibliography

Dore Ashton, About Rothko, Oxford University Press, 1983.

John Gage, Barbara Novak & Brian O’Doherty, Eric Michaud, Jeffrey Weiss, Rothko, Musee d’art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1999.

Mark Rothko 1903-1970. Tate Gallery Publishing, 1987.

David Anfam, Mark Rothkohe Works on Canvas: A Catalogue Raisonne, Yale University Press, 1998.

Mordechai Omer and Christopher Rothko (eds.), Mark Rothko. Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2007.

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Mark Rothko

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mark Rothko

Mark Rothko exhibition at Tate Modern, London, September 2008 – February 2009 includes curator interview

Press reviews:

The Times (includes video)

The Times, a second Times review

The Observer

The Independent

The Telegraph

National Gallery web feature on Mark Rothko includes an overview of Rothko’s career, numerous examples of his art, a biography of the artist

Interview with Bernard Braddon and Sidney Schectman Conducted by Avis Berman, New York City, New York, 1981 October 9. Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art (Braddon & Schectman were owners of the Mercury Gallery which exhibited the works of the Ten in the 1930s).

The Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas, is dedicated to Rothko paintings and non-denominational worship

Mark Rothko’s Gravesite

ArtCyclopedia contains links to galleries and museums with Rothko pieces and articles on Rothko.

Essay on Mark Rothko – in Examinations Archives

Jackson Pollock & Mark Rothko video screener

Guardian slideshow including pictures of works and photograph of the artist

Mark Rothko Web Portal The Art Story Artist Information on Rothko

Independent slideshow has several works

BBC’s Power of Art The documentary series Simon Schama’s Power of Art featured Mark Rothko.

v  d  e

Works by Mark Rothko

White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose) (1950)  Four Darks in Red (1958)  No. 14 (1960)  Untitled (Black on Grey) (1970) 

Categories: 1903 births | 1970 deaths | American painters | American printmakers | Abstract expressionist artists | Art Students League of New York alumni | Artists who committed suicide | Jewish painters | Jewish American artists | Latvian artists | Latvian-American Jews | People from Daugavpils | People from Livonia | Naturalized citizens of the United States | People from Portland, Oregon | Suicides by sharp instrument | Drug-related suicides in New YorkHidden categories: Articles needing additional references from February 2010 | All articles needing additional references

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“Secret Lives of Women” TV Segment Reveals International Dating from the Foreign Women’s Perspective

Before a single interview was shot, WeTV’s editors decided to create a segment they would call “Mail Order Brides”.  But what does that mean?  Men who traveled overseas to meet women have often been chided with, “What are you doing – trying to find a mail order bride?”  Yet people with any common sense understand that you can’t order a human being through the mail. How is it that this 150-year-old phrase still remains a part of western culture vocabulary?

It may be acceptable to criticize men for going overseas to find love, but what happens when a women’s television network does a show featuring the foreign women’s stories?  A drastically different perspective unfolds.

As millions of TV’s viewers were glued to their screens on Tuesday night, many watched WeTV’s “Secret Lives of Women” and heard things they had never considered before.  A clear case was made that women from other countries have valid and intelligent reasons for looking abroad.

“With over 3 ½ million more women than men in the Ukraine, women are looking elsewhere to find love”, said the female commentator.

“Men in Ukraine aren’t bad here.  There are good men, but they aren’t looking for long term relationships”, said, Anna, a 21-year old woman now married to Mark, a man from Sacramento, California.

That appeared to be the common theme.  Men have too many choices overseas and have less motivation to settle down.  So what do these women do to find family-oriented men?  They sign up with “Marriage agencies” in hopes that they can help them connect with good foreign men through this form of international dating.

“Marriage agencies are popular here,” said Nastya, an 18 year old Ukrainian woman.  “When women here get to interact with foreign men they are very excited.  American men have made a good impression on me.”

“In my opinion, American men are smart people – intellectual people”, said another 18 year old woman names Valaria.  “They seem to immediately understand what girls want.”

So how does East meet West?  The agencies facilitate international dating through letter correspondence and personal meetings.  In this segment, crews followed a social gathering where 200 women came to a party, but only 25 foreign men were available for introductions.

The reactions were mixed.  Many women were obviously disappointed that there weren’t more men.  Others experienced cultural clashes as some of the men tried to impress them with their lives in America.

“Some men wanted to impress me. They’d show me pictures and say look at my house or my car.  I don’t care about houses or cars or money.  If I like you, I’m going to like you”, declared Anna.  “Maybe some women are after money, but I was after a husband.”

Nastya and Valaria attended the social, but weren’t approached by any of the men until right at the end.  They didn’t find what they were hoping for, but said they would certainly like to try again.

WeTV says this about themselves, “Available in nearly 74 million homes, WE tv’s programming offers viewers compelling perspectives on women`s lives ranging from the ordinary to the extraordinary, presented in a non-judgmental voice.”

This segment appeared to deliver on that pledge.  It may very well have been the first program ever to provide such a non-judgmental voice on behalf of these women.  Perhaps a new day and new tone has been set for dialog about the true story – the human story – that is international dating.

Meet Russian Women
Where are good spots to meet Russian women?

I love russian women. They are strong and have sexy accents. I live in NYC now.

They have those websites for mail order and or you can just make friends. I looked at one for the heck of it, ok i was really bored and wanted to see if it was true and there were a lot of really pretty women on there….If your in NYC, look in the phone book for stores that cater to Russian’s, restaurants, food stores etc…You know they have Little Italy, Chinatown, they should have, i dont know Russian villiage, something…You may just get lucky and meet a female at one of those….

Meet Russian Women Video-A Belarus Bride

Russian Brides: Find Beautiful Single Russian Women In Canada & Usa – Meet Russian Women Living In Your Area – Eastern European Women Marriage

Russian Women in North America: Beautiful Russian women are now living in the USA and Canada.

Russian girls have grown up watching Hollywood movies. They really believe that North American men are more romantic than local men. In fact, they believe that North American men are honest, loyal and loving – just like in the movies! They believe that a Western man would make her romantic dreams come true.

Russian women can be found around the world. They’ve travelled to various countries because of family, career, education or curiosity.

Russian women in America: Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, Seattle are just a few of the cities in the United States where beautiful, lonely Russian women now live.

Russian women in Canada: Toronto, Edmonton, Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary are a number of Canadian centers where Russian women have setled.

Worldwide: from China and Korea – to Dubai and Italia – to the UK and Australia, women from Russia and Eastern Europe are now living and seeking true love.

Start Now! Click Here to See Photos of Beautiful Russian Women Living in Your Area!- Meet beautiful single Russian women seeking foreign men for dating or marriage.

 

So – Have you been thinking of dating beautiful Russian women? Dreaming of the perfect Russian lady?

Are you ready to meet your Russian partner?

The #1 Russian Brides Dating and Relationship site recommended by WUVING.com is RussianEuro. RussianEuro has not only gathered photos and profiles of thousands of beautiful, hot Russian women, but is also recommended as the safest, most secure and user-friendly service available.

You can meet the perfect Russian woman or Eastern European partner from within their extensive database featuring 1000′s of single marriage minded Eastern European women looking for love. And remember – some of these beautiful women already live in the West, including the US, Canada and the UK!

Meet Russian Ladies, Russian girls, or even a Russian partner. Browse personals and join their Russian Chat Rooms for an exciting Russian dating experience! They have members from all around the world, so why not meet a gorgeous russian woman today. Start Now! JOIN FREE!

In fact – RussianEuro allows you to meet beautiful, single women from all over Eastern Europe:

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RussianEuro is a specialty dating and personals site that focuses on bringing together single men and those seeking Russian women or Eastern European women for dating, marriage and chat.

 

***** “I proposed and she said yes!”

“God bless RussianEuro. I met Alya some months ago on this site and we started chatting more than two hours every day, the compatibility and chemistry was such that we fell in love right away.

“I spent an amazing time in Ukraine and we had the time to get to know each other a lot better and to fall in love more. I have not only found an amazingly beautiful, smart, easygoing woman, but also the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with, yes, that`s right folks, I proposed and she said yes. I love you Alya” – David

 

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“I met Elena (my wife now!!) via her friend while chatting on the site.

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“She (with her friend Lolita who is a great lady and a great friend of us!!!) was waiting for me in a train station. I looked at her and I felt I found my love which I had been looking for ages. We could talk that much but our eyes, body languages were so strong and clear that we did not have to think twice to be together!!!

“I had few relationships before but never felt to get married. Elena touched the deepest part of my heart and her love made me to feel paradise!! Every day, every moment she is now in my heart and mind-I feel a real happy person with her presence in my life. I just feel life is so wonderful and meaningful!

“Following our first meeting in January 2009 I wanted to be with her very much. I visited her again in March 2009 to know each other more. Afterwards, I proposed her in May 2009 (offered her engagement ring) when we both were enjoying the Ukrainian summer near lake, mountain and river.

“Elena was so surprised hearing my proposal (will you marry me?) that she was speechless for a while (that made me little nervous!!!) but she happily said YES OF COURSE! I was just on the moon!! and felt everything is so wonderful!! We then married in July 2009 in her city in Ukraine.

“For me, Elena is a gift from God. I will love and care for her for the rest of my life. She is my heaven, my paradise for which many people can just dream about. She is my life, she is my everything. Thanks God!!!

“I want to express my sincere gratitude and thanks to everyone of RussianEuro because it has changed my life and with its help I am now feel a realy happiness. Thank you very much once again!! I recommend RussianEuro for every single person looking for love and happiness.”

- Monir

 

See more articles by top relationship experts at WUVING.com…

WUVING.com is loaded with tips and articles from the top experts in relationships. Among them, are Michael Webb of OPRAH SHOW fame, whose articles have appeared in over 50 magazines such as Redbook and Woman’s World. And Kara Oh, best selling author of MARRIAGE MADE EASY who has appeared on CBS News and FOX News and in magazines like Cosmopolitan and Woman’s World.

And the people you can immediately reach are “men and women found locally and worldwide.”

What WUVING.com has done is specialize in individual needs of people looking for real love and romance. You can meet people in our military, singles, people of all sizes and races — in other words — real people!

==>>> See more about meeting and winning the love of your life at Russian Brides – Meet Your Own Russian Beauty.

In area, Russia is the largest country in the world, with Canada a close second.

By jet from Moscow, it takes about 8 hours to reach Vladivostok on its Pacific Ocean coast. If you were to take that trip on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, count on your journey taking four days minimum. Russia has over 1,000 major cities, with 16 having a metro population of more than one million. The most populated cities are Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk and Yekaterinburg.

Moscow, the capital, with over 12 million residents, is the country’s major economic and political center. With its traditional customs and emerging economy, Russia is a glorious combination of old and new.

- Kathleen