Untitled (Sketch for Harvard Mural) c. 1961

This is an ink and watercolor sketch on paper by Mark Rothko, a study for his Harvard murals. Just imagine him, probably in his studio, hunched over this small sheet, trying to figure out the composition for a much larger piece. It’s like a whisper of what's to come. I see these soft pink washes and bold black lines, kind of floating, kind of architectural. He's feeling his way through the forms, the negative space as important as the shapes themselves. The thinness of the paint allows the paper to breathe, giving it an ethereal quality. You know, Rothko was always chasing after something beyond the canvas, a way to touch the sublime. The way that the forms hover and bleed into each other reminds me of other artists like Gorky, always searching for that perfect balance between abstraction and emotion. It’s this constant conversation, a back-and-forth through time.