(Untitled) [recto] c. early 1940s

This untitled watercolor was made by Mark Rothko on a small piece of paper, and what grabs me is how he’s already pushing against conventional form. The painting is all about process; you can see the layering, the awkwardness, and the searching. Rothko’s use of watercolor here feels immediate, almost like sketching, but it’s also potent. The paint is thin and translucent, letting the white of the paper peek through, which creates a kind of luminosity. I’m drawn to the red stripes at the bottom, they’re not quite parallel and waver a bit, which makes them feel alive. And then there’s that figure, or figures, lounging, with faces drawn in profile one behind the other. It makes you wonder, what is Rothko searching for here? Rothko’s later color field paintings are so different from this, yet you can see the seeds of those monumental works already present in this little sketch. It's like a visual diary entry, where Rothko is talking to himself, trying out ideas. Art is an ongoing conversation, after all.