Rothko Room

Rothko Room

Created in 1960 by Duncan Phillips, the chapel-like Rothko Room was relocated within the museum in 2006, but remains essentially unchanged in scale and character. The room, which holds four paintings by Mark Rothko, is relatively small, reflecting Rothko's preference for exhibiting his art "in a scale of normal living." 

Rothko himself took a close interest in the room, which inspired similar Rothko installations elsewhere. On one visit in 1961 when Duncan Phillips was away, he asked the museum staff to make several small adjustments to the space. Phillips immediately noticed—and reversed—the changes when he returned. He did agree, however, to limit the seating in the room to a single bench, a decision that is still honored today.

Rothko intended his works not as abstract exercises, but as distillations of human experience, a perception that Phillips shared. In looking at Rothko's paintings, Phillips wrote, "What we recall are not memories but old emotions disturbed or resolved—some sense of well being suddenly shadowed by a cloud—yellow ochres strangely suffused with a drift of gray prevailing over an ambience of rose or the fire diminishing into a glow of embers, or the light when the night descends."

Mark Rothko, Green and Maroon, 1953. © 2008 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

©2010 The Phillips Collection.

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