Interior with Figure Sitting Behind a Desk [recto] 

Mark Rothko made this untitled painting of a figure in an interior using gouache and ink on paper, but without a specific date. The scene evokes a sense of the artist in their studio, laboring over their work. But what is the public role of this private, intellectual labor? The mid-century was a time of great institutional expansion in the arts; museums grew, and university art departments became more common. This created new opportunities for artists even as it presented the challenge of navigating this more structured art world. In the United States at this time, the question of art’s role in society became heightened, with abstraction becoming aligned with the values of freedom, individualism, and even democracy. The Museum of Modern Art played a key role in this ideological alignment, and studying its archives can help us to understand the cultural stakes of paintings like this.