Phalanx of the Mind

1945 · Painting

Can I see it?

Not on view at present

Where is “Phalanx of the Mind” now? Collection: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Not on view at present. Checked October 12, 2026.

Washington, D.C., United States

It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.

1943
Berkeley: friendship with Clyfford Still
Hoping a change of scenery would help, Rothko returned to Portland and then travelled to Berkeley, where he met Clyfford Still and the two became close friends; Still’s deeply abstract paintings are thought to have influenced Rothko’s later work.
autumn 1943
Peggy Guggenheim
In the autumn of 1943 Rothko returned to New York and met the collector and dealer Peggy Guggenheim, who was at first reluctant to take on his work.
13 June 1943
Separation from Edith Sachar and depression
On 13 June 1943 Rothko and Edith Sachar separated again, and the divorce (1944) left him depressed for a long time.
1944–1945
Mell Beistle: meeting and marriage
Rothko met the book illustrator Mary Alice “Mell” Beistle in 1944 and married her in early 1945.
late 1945
The Art of This Century show
The one-person show at Peggy Guggenheim’s gallery was not a success: few sales, at prices from $150 to $750, and unfavourable reviews. Guggenheim nevertheless bought several works, including Sacrifice (1946), and showed it in her European galleries, making it among the first of Rothko’s paintings exhibited outside the United States.
1946
The first Rothko in a museum collection
The Whitney Museum, which included Rothko’s surrealist works in its annual exhibition from 1943 to 1950, acquired Baptismal Scene (1945) in 1946: the first of his works to enter a museum collection, a key milestone in his career.