View of a Street in an Urban Landscape

1928

First group show at the Opportunity Gallery

In 1928 Rothko and a group of young artists showed their work for the first time at the Opportunity Gallery: dark, moody expressionist interiors and urban scenes that critics and fellow artists received well.

early 1930s

Milton Avery and Adolph Gottlieb

In the early 1930s Rothko met Adolph Gottlieb and the circle around Milton Avery, including Barnett Newman, Joseph Solman, Louis Schanker and John Graham. According to Elaine de Kooning it was Avery who convinced Rothko that a professional artist’s life was possible; the friends vacationed together at Lake George and Gloucester, painting by day and talking about art in the evenings.

1932

Edith Sachar: meeting and marriage

At Lake George in 1932 Rothko met the jewelry designer Edith Sachar, whom he married later that year.

summer 1933

First solo show at the Portland Art Museum

In the summer of 1933 the Portland Art Museum held Rothko’s first one-person show, mostly drawings and watercolours. In a very unusual step he hung works by his young pupils from the Center Academy alongside his own.

21 November – 9 December 1933

First solo show in New York

At the Contemporary Arts Gallery Rothko showed fifteen oil paintings, mostly portraits, along with watercolours and drawings. The oils especially caught the critics’ eye: his fields of colour had already moved beyond Avery’s influence.

21 February 1938

Becomes a US citizen

On 21 February 1938 Rothko received American citizenship, relieved: he had feared that the growing influence of the Nazis in Europe might lead to the sudden deportation of Jews without citizenship.