Mark Rothko Boxed Notecards

Before abstract expressionist Mark Rothko (American, b. Russia, 19031970) could support himself with his art, he had a part-time job teaching children in Brooklyn. He said this experience allowed him to understand childrens ability to communicate their ideas of reality with simple visual images. He saw this as a gift in his search for truth.

By the 1950s Rothko had developed his signature motif: large canvases of luminous rectangles that seem to float within a larger color field. To achieve the sense of light emanating from his paintings, Rothko stained the canvases with multiple thin layers of pigments, some of which show through the top layer of paint. Even the deepest hues seem to emit light.

In reducing forms to simple shapes presented on a grand scale that viewers were meant to experience in close quarters, Rothko sought to elicit deeply felt spiritual and philosophical reactions. He said he wanted to express basic human emotionstragedy, ecstasy, doom. . . . The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them.

- Twenty assorted 5 x 7 in. blank notecards (5 each of 4 designs) with envelopes in a decorative box

- Printed on recycled paper