No. 2

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.

3 – 22 March 1947

A first solo show with Betty Parsons

Rothko’s first solo exhibition at the Betty Parsons Gallery ran from 3 to 22 March 1947; he showed there again in 1950 and 1951.

October 1948

Rothko’s mother dies

Rothko’s mother, Kate, died in October 1948; the discovery of his definitive form came at a period of great distress.

early 1949

New paintings at Parsons: a “revelation”

After painting his first multiform Rothko shut himself away at his house in East Hampton and invited only a select few, among them the critic Harold Rosenberg, to see the new paintings. In early 1949 he showed them at the Betty Parsons Gallery, where Rosenberg found them nothing short of a revelation.