Mark Rothko: Toward the Light in the Chapel

by Annie Cohen-Solal

From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, a fascinating exploration of the life and work of Mark Rothko, one of America’s most famous and enigmatic postwar visual artists

"Cohen-Solal subtly demonstrates the link between Rothko’s three outsider statuses (artist, immigrant, and Jew), his color-block canvases, and his essential Americanness.”— New Yorker

“Gripping. . . . A rewarding close-up of Rothko’s . . . experience as a Jewish immigrant.”— Publishers Weekly, S tarred Review

Mark Rothko, one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century, was born in the Jewish Pale of Settlement in 1903. He immigrated to the United States at age ten, taking with him his Talmudic education and his memories of pogroms and persecutions in Russia. His integration into American society began with a series of painful experiences, especially as a student at Yale, where he felt marginalized for his origins and ultimately left the school. The decision to become an artist led him to a new phase in his life. Early in his career, Annie Cohen-Solal writes, “he became a major player in the social struggle of American artists, and his own metamorphosis benefited from the unique transformation of the U.S. art world during this time.” Within a few decades, he had forged his definitive artistic signature, and most critics hailed him as a pioneer. The numerous museum shows that followed in major U.S. and European institutions ensured his celebrity. But this was not enough for Rothko, who continued to innovate. Ever faithful to his habit of confronting the establishment, he devoted the last decade of his life to cultivating his new conception of art as an experience , thanks to the commission of a radical project, the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas.

Cohen-Solal’s fascinating biography, based on considerable archival research, tells the unlikely story of how a young immigrant from Dvinsk became a crucial transforming agent of the art world—one whose legacy prevails to this day.

About Jewish

Jewish Lives is a prizewinning series of interpretative biography designed to explore the many facets of Jewish identity. Individual volumes illuminate the imprint of Jewish figures upon literature, religion, philosophy, politics, cultural and economic life, and the arts and sciences. Subjects are paired with authors to elicit lively, deeply informed books that explore the range and depth of the Jewish experience from antiquity to the present.

In 2014, the Jewish Book Council named Jewish Lives the winner of its Jewish Book of the Year Award, the first series ever to receive this award.

More praise for Jewish

“Excellent.” – New York times

“Exemplary.” – Wall St. Journal

“Distinguished.” – New Yorker

“Superb.” – The Guardian

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Biography, Judaism, Biography Memoir, History, Art History

296 pages, Hardcover

First published October 12, 2013

About the author

Annie Cohen-Solal is an academic and writer. For ever, she has been tracking down interactions between art, literature and society with an intercultural twist. After Sartre: A Life (1987) became an international success, she became French cultural counselor in the US, where she held her position from 1989 to 1992.

In New York, Cohen-Solal’s encounter with Leo Castelli led her to shift her interest to the art world. In the frame of a manyfold project which was to become a social history of the US artist, she published Painting American (2001); Leo Castelli & His Circle (2010); New York-Mid Century (2014), with Paul Goldberger and Robert Gottlieb; Mark Rothko (2013). In 2013, she became special advisor at the Ecole Normale Supérieure for the Nuit Sartre ; in 2014, general curator of Magiciens de la terre 2014 at the Centre Pompidou, publishing Magiciens de la terre : retour sur une exposition légendaire, with Jean-Hubert Martin. As a professor, she has held positions at Tisch School of the Arts (NYU), École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, University of Caen, École Normale Supérieure in Paris, the Freie University of Berlin, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is working on curating exhibitions for the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam, the Musée Picasso and the Musée de l’Immigration in Paris. She will soon lead, alongside Jeremy Adelman, the “Crossing Boundaries” workshop at the CASBS (Stanford University). Born in Algiers, Annie now lives between Paris and Cortona.

(Taken from the bio of her official website)

Reviews

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think maybe I should swear off reading biographies of artists I like. When I read about van Gogh, in a detailed, personalized study of him, I found him to be too much of a dick for my liking. That bio was clotted with way too much detail of his dickishness and petulant whining that made him largely unsympathetic. I liked him better as the crazy guy who cut off his ear and painted weird shit. I don't need psychological explanations for what he did.
That's just too deep. On the opposite end of the spectrum is this largely unsatisfying biography of one of my other favorite painters, Rothko. Now, I love me some visual art. And I love me some Rothko. I knew fuck-all about the guy and I was fine with that, I guess, until I saw this book and decided to make another ominous foray into artistic biography.
There's a lot of irony in this book about Rothko. Let's be blunt up front: Rothko himself said, "I hate and distrust all art historians, experts, and critics." This would've put me off the project from the beginning. You're got balls to tackle this guy, Author. It added an unintentional level of humor to the biography.
In fact, Rothko's entire ethos seemed to stem from an utter disdain for art criticism and an utter lack of critical expiation. He hated galleries and the art world and was more interested in art as an experience of the senses, as a presentation. What worse subject for an art biography could there be? When you're quoting passages that basically render the entire project of studying Rothko meaningless, maybe you should take a step back and ask yourself, what in god's name am I doing?
But, despite Rothko's warning for us to avoid the meaningless banality of explanation, the author wrote the book anyway.
Fine. But there isn't much meat to this thing to make it worthwhile. It suffers from the opposite effect as the Van Gogh bio. There isn't enough Rothko. Rothko is a fleeting presence. The details of his life, outside his early life in late imperial Russia, his Talmudic schooling and his frenetic identity and emigration (really the only good part of the book--and, in my own ironic way, I wanted more of this) are really all you get. Rothko was apparently a very troubled fellow but we only get a sense of this in his relation to art dealers and gallery owners. This strikes the heart of the problem: the book focuses way too much on context and not on the artist himself, counter to the Van Gogh book I mentioned above.
Sure, we need to know about the circles he moved in, but the book drowns in such detail: art show, art show, angry artist meeting, art show, angry artist meeting, and so on.
The other artists, and often Rothko himself, come across as puling, whiny, catty bitches who were mad that other artists were more successful than them, writing chiding, bitter manifestos. It's hard to have any respect for them. Rothko, too, was like that to a certain degree, but you forgive him for it when you start realizing what his actual artistic ethos was and why he was obsessing over lamp placement in exhibits of his work. But there's not enough of the man himself here to ever get more than a tantalizing glimpse into what he accomplished and why.
Hmm. What is it about painting that renders discussion of it effete, pointless and nauseating? It's like trying to describe an act of sex to your friends: absurd and unnecessary to understand the act itself, unfeeling and insufficient.
I'm not trying to link painting and sex. Or maybe I am.
In short, don't explain the guy's work to me because he wouldn't have wanted you to. Instead, tell me about him. Or his method (covered in 2-3 pages). And stop trying to explain him through the works of other people and, gawd, especially novels that remind you of him.

[Bert Hirsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mark Rothko, Toward the Light in the Chapel
By Annie Cohen-Solal

A short concise insightful biography of one of the great Abstract Expressionist painters of the 20th Century.

Escaping the pogroms of czarist Russia, he emigrated with his parents and siblings in 1913. He was a 10 year old Talmud Torah student from an assimilated family. By the age of 18 he had taught himself English and become one of the top students at his Portland, Oregon High School winning a full scholarship to Yale University.

Already he had established himself as an exceptional intellect with a drive towards serious study. Disappointed with his Yale classmates whom he saw as more interested in sports and parties he left, disillusioned after 2 years settling in NYC. There he discovered art, attending classes in Jewish Settlement Houses and the Arts Students League.

For many years he existed on a teacher’s salary while he engaged the NYC art scene. Among those he drew support and inspiration from: Clyfford Still, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, Adolph Gottlieb, David Hare, Hans Hoffman, William de Kooning, William Baziotes, and Jackson Pollack. As a group many of them became known as The Irascibles, their name indicating the brashness and seriousness with which they took on the established art world dominated by European museums, galleries and artists.

As the 1940s came to an end Rothko’s work had transformed, his paintings became more abstract and the signature style we now know so well came to light. His work received recognition, he had several successful gallery exhibits with Betty Parsons, Leo Castelli and Sidney Janis. Both MOMA and Peggy Guggenheim recognized his importance and by the mid-50s he was considered a giant.

He was commissioned to provide a series of murals for the 4 Seasons Restaurant in the newly built Mies van der Rohe/Philip Johnson Seagrams skyscraper but as it neared completion his distaste for the moneyed class, that the rich would be eating while his work considered mere decoration resulted in his pulling out, returning the ample commission. Eventually these red murals found a permanent home at the Tate Galleries in London.

His culmination was the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas. Commissioned by the de Menil family he dedicated the last years of his life to completing this masterpiece. He not only gave considerable attention to painting (using techniques from the Italian masters of the 1500s utilizing egg whites to help illuminate the paint from within) but also paid undue attention to the placement of his work, the lighting, all of which effected the viewer’s experience. What he searched for was a total experience for those who viewed his work; they become immersed and moved on a deep emotional level.

In the end, his health failing, a deep depression worsened by alcoholism, he committed suicide late at night alone in his studio. The de Menil Rothko Chapel opened the next year and became a spiritual destination for thousands of visitors including the Dali Lama, Nelson Mandela and Jimmy Carter.

Rothko’s inattention and disinterest to finances resulted in a decade long court battle over his estate. The Marlborough Gallery had become his sole representative and were found guilty of fraud. A family foundation was established, Rothko’s daughter and son took control of his legacy. A moving last scene in the book is their journey to their father’s birthplace, Daugavpils, Latvia where they established the Mark Rothko Art Center.

[Ike Rakiecki · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoroughly researched biography of Mark Rothko, an American abstract expressionist painter born in 1903. For me, in order for a biography to be effective, it has to give me an idea of who a person was, describe the people and events that that influenced them, and illustrate how their life affected society and future generations. Simply put, this book succeeded in doing that. I do wish that more of Rothko's paintings were in the book though.

[Laurent De Maertelaer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Klassiek opgebouwde biografie, die aan de hand van 12 korte hoofdstukken over keerpunten in Rothko's leven en loopbaan (Talmoed, migratie naar de VS, Seagram murals, Houston Chapel, etc.), een vrij volledig beeld geeft van waar het de schilder om te doen was. Laat zich bijzonder vlot lezen en geeft dankzij de brede omkadering en contextualisering van Cohen-Solal, een mooi beeld van het tijdsbestek waarin Rothko zich steeds verder verloor in zijn obsessie naar de ultieme schilderervaring. Of hoe mystiek en kunst hand in hand kunnen gaan.

[Matt McBride · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cohen-Solal starts the book with Rothko's birth in the Pale of Settlement, with the omnipresent threat of violence from Russian pogroms. While there, Rothko entered the header at age four. Though he did not continue studying after he immigrated as an adolescent, Cohen-Solal traces how this experience shaped how he viewed art. This occupies most of the first half of the book; the second deals more with Rothko's relationships to artists, galleries, museums, and critics in the decades before and after WWII. In this respect, it's a great document for understanding the uniquely important time in American art in which Rothko worked. The only ways I felt the book was lacking was that few of the color plates coincided with paintings that Sohen-Solal talked about in-depth (though a deep dive into the paintings isn't quite her focus). And, the prose could be a bit tortured. The NYT described it as "succinct," in their review, so maybe I'm off base. However, I felt it was rare to get a sentence under three lines lines without as many clauses. Still, a necessary book if you want to understand Rothko.

[EvaLemondeouri1 · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent biography that I read in one day, I really enjoyed the first part that really goes deep into Rothko’s childhood, I was not familiar with his personal life and the book felt like it was written from a family member. Yes, it’s not an art critic or review of his work but its centered around his life & this is why I found it interesting.. you can really understand from where he was coming from & how conflicted and complex he was as an artist but also and mostly as a human being. In my opinion this is a really good & deep introduction to his work. I was also personally really moved by all the Jewish historic facts at the beginning. After reading it, you feel closer to the artist and his work, but you also want to go dive more into his art… and that’s what made it brilliant!
Bravo Madame Annie Cohen-Solal !

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three & 1/2 stars. Although a good effort, this book kind of stops with a thud--abruptly giving it away as one in a series of books by the same writer -- as though the she couldn't expend quite enough effort on Rothko for lack of time. Nevertheless a worthwhile effort about the foremost American artist of the 20th century; reflected by the fact that his paintings fetch the highest prices of any American artist who ever lived. Fortunately he painted close to a thousand works of art. It would be unusual for any of them to sell for less than $50-100 million. That's for one of them. A desirable one? It's just a matter of time before that price hits $300-500 million.

[Brian Kovesci · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview of Rothko's life as an artist and as a European-born Jewish man. I really like that this book successfully follows his life and career, but contextualizes his life as it relates to Judaism. It allowed for an unusual lilt to the storytelling that gave this biography a fresh perspective.

I now need to go to Houston.

[Derek Douglas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finished this book and am unsatisfied. I feel there was very little discussion of how he progressed as an untrained artist. There was no details really on how his style drastically changed in the mid/late 50s. The last third of the book is just tons of revolving conversations about galleries, critics, dealers, etc.

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

So many names that were too easily mixed up. I do not have a memory for names, which is in general (and in this specific instant) what I most dislike about history books. Too much history. Not enough understanding of the person.

[Readgina · Rating 2 out of 5]

How is it possible to write such a boring book about such an interesting artist?
It reads like a textbook or thesis and has 33 pages of footnotes (which I skipped).

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sets Rothko into his contemporary world with artists like Barnett Newman and Clyford Still. Explains his family’s immigration from Russia and his course towards art.

[Loki Aldebaran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vaya hombre el Rothko.

[Dustin Stein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick introduction to Rothko. His early childhood it in greater discussion than his creation process which was disappointing.

[James Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enlightening study of a Russian immigrant who overcame many obstacles to become a leading representative of artistic modernism.

[Aidan Duffy · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite painter

[Melody Nelson · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is nothing wrong with this book, just don’t call it a biography.

[Chris Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good.

[Jill Meyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author Annie Cohen-Solal, in her new biography, "Mark Rothko: Toward the Light in the Chapel", asks the provocative question, "Why, when during the previous centuries Jews had generally been absent from the visual arts, did the dawn of abstraction coincide with their entrance into the world of art, with Jewish collectors, critics, artists, dealers detecting, supporting, and following the lessons of the first Modernists?" And she answers it in her book by looking at the life, career, and world of Mark Rothko.

Rothko was at the turning point when American artists began to be valued as much as their European counterparts. He was part of a group of painters - Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, among other contemporaries - whose art transcended the past and moved these artists into the mainstream of accepted art. Their art was finally purchased and exhibited at the MoMA - which had the mindset of "European-art-is-best" - in the 1940's and 1950's.

Cohen-Solal examines Mark Rothko - born Marcus Rothkowitz in 1904 in current-day Latvia - in as much of a religious context as that of an artistic. For Rothko was a Jewish artist, and his religious beliefs and practices were important to his art. Mark Rothko emigrated from the Pale of Settlement in 1907 as conditions for the Jewish population became increasingly tenuous. His family settled in Portland, Oregon where his father died a few years later. Rothko was raised as an observant Jew - though curiously his elder brothers and sister were raised somewhat more haphazardly - and he was active as a teenager in the Russian Jewish neighborhood of Portland. He received a scholarship to Yale - that bastion of WASPness - but left after two years. After finding himself in the 1930's as a budding artist, he moved to New York City, and made his way steadily up the art world ladder into acceptance, and eventually some wealth.

But Mark Rothko was a contrarian, too. He accepted a commission to provide art for the new Four Seasons restaurant in the Seagram Building, but pulled out and returned his advance when he visited the restaurant. He disliked the clientele, the menu, the ambiance, and, hell, the WEALTH of the place. Several panels of the art he had made were placed in Houston in the Rothko Chapel, built by the Menil family. His post-war years were his most fruitful but his persona began to change. He separated from his wife and two children in the late 1960's and committed suicide in 1970. His fame and his work have long outlived him.

Annie Cohen-Solal returns, in the end, to the city in Latvia he and his family had left more than 100 years before. His children opened a museum dedicated to Marcus Rothkowitz. He - and his art - had come full circle.

[Ellie McGregor · Rating 3 out of 5]

“I am interested only in expressing basic human emotions - tragedy, ecstasy, doom and so on. The fact that lots of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I communicate those basic human emotions…the people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them.” (149)

“His evolution towards the Multiforme resulted not so much from the text that the figures had been removed from the canvas but that they been replaced, first by the symbols for the figures (during his Mythological and Surrealist phases), and then by forms that evolved into new substitutes for the figures.” (111)

“But in Rothko there is no pictorial reference at all to remembered experience. What we recall are not memories, but old emotions disturbed or resolved.” (174)

“Tell them that I have painted Greek temples all my life, without knowing it.” (162)

“I’ve come to believe that no painting should ever be displayed in a public place. I accepted this assignment as a challenge, with strictly malicious intentions. I hope to paint something that will ruin the appetite of every son of a butch who ever eats in the room. If the restaurant would refuse to put up my murals, that would be the ultimate compliment.” (160)

“I realized that I was much influence subconsciously by Michelangelo’s walls…He achieved just the kind of feeling I’m after - he makes the viewers feel they are trapped…so that all they can do is butt their heads forever against the wall.” (160)

“These silent paintings with their enormous, beautiful, opaque surfaces that are mirrors, reflecting what the viewer brings with him” (174)

“Like modern painting, Jewish religious practices are remarkably free of representational content which possibly explains why many young Jews find it easy to become modern painters.” (66)

“Or if we repeat often enough the words ‘archaic’ and ‘hierarchical’ and ‘omen’ may our quest be speeded?” (93)

“Ultimate examples of an untranslatable language” (180)

“I paint very large pictures…because I want to be intimate and human. You are in it. It isn’t something you command.” (133)

“For a long time I rejected the notion of collection. The very word seemed pretentious. It implied a point of view and I did not want to have a point of view. To discover treasures and bring them home if possible, yes, but the way you make a bouquet, without putting a great deal of thought into it, as you go along and for the delight of the eye. But flower after flower, bouquet after bouquet, you start to think botanically. Then the great adventure begins, the endless quest through time and space. (Dominique de Menil)” (187)

[Olga Vannucci · Rating 4 out of 5]

There once was a young man from Latvia
Who went by the name of Mark Rothko.
An artist, a mensch, a deep intellectual,
His crowning achievement was his namesake chapel.

[Julia Astakhova · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book seems to be a more of a historical record about Mark Rothko than an art history piece about his work as a painter. Though it still remains intriguing and exciting. First part is dedicated to the challenges that he had to overcome on his way to become a greatest artist of XX century. A reader could learn on his Russian roots, what it meant to be a Jew in that country and what monstrous destiny they were at risk being in such state threatened be country-wide pogroms and inequality on all levels of life. The more unfortunate was to read afterwards that injustice took place even in such a dignified place as Yale University. The author leads the reader through the evolution of Rothko vision of his art, his creative experiments. Though as I stated it earlier we do not see a detailed in-depth review of his work, even the Chapel, which I really expected to read more about.

[Rebecca Waring-Crane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Preparing to speak to a group that just read this title, I picked up Cohen-Solal's work so I could be on the same page as my audience . More than mere research for this talk, this book helped me with another project; I'm taking a class in Studio Painting: Oils and each week the non-studio assignment is to learn about two new-to-me artists.

I've seen prints and bookplates of Rothko's color field work and would LOVE to know how he created his magic, but had little knowledge of his life. Thus, he's new to me.

Beyond this happy double motivation, the text was dry, lacking in depth or any hint of sympathetic feeling. Rothko may not have been a warm person, but the sign of engaging biography is to make the subject come alive. It doesn't happen.

[Cobertizo · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Empiezo a odiar la vida de pintor. Uno comienza a pelearse con su interior con un pie aún en el mundo normal. Después te quedas atrapado en un frenesí que te lleva al borde de la locura, todo lo lejos posible pero sin volver nunca. El regreso consiste en unas semanas de aturdimiento en las cuales solo estás medio vivo. (...) Una pintura vive por la compañía y el estímulo producido en los ojos del observador sensible. Muere por el mismo motivo. Por lo tanto, dirigirla al mundo es un acto arriesgado e insensible"

[Sari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having long been interested in the paintings of Mark Rothko, I was interested in this book. While parts were interesting, I found it replete with the author's assumptions and unduly repetitive. I was disappointed with the few color plates, as the quality of the reproductions of the artist's works was poor and the images rather small.

I did learn about Rothko's life and greatly enjoyed the photographs sprinkled through the book, though wondered about the placement choices of some.

[Giulia Larigaldie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting book analysing Mark Rothko's legacy, in light of his life as a migrant within historical and sociological environment, and how he became one of the key contemporary artist of the USA.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://winterlief.blogspot.nl/2014/11...

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

disappointed with the writing. The author makes too many assumptions that she either doesn't flesh out or does so after the fact.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

See my review at http://www.thereportergroup.org/Artic...