Untitled

A field of deep red fills most of the canvas, interrupted by three stacked rectangles rendered in soft pink and white hues that float horizontally across the middle of the composition. The painting, titled Untitled, was made in 1958 using oil and acrylic on canvas, and it is held at the National Gallery of Art. It came to the museum as a gift from The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc. The artist, Mark Rothko (1903–1970), an American painter, worked within abstract expressionism, a movement defined by loose, expressive handling of color and form. Looking closely, the edges of the pink and white bands appear soft and uneven, almost breathing against the saturated red ground, giving the whole surface a quiet, glowing intensity that seems to shift depending on how long one looks at it.