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Mark
Rothko was born Marcus Rothkowitz in Dvinsk,
Russia, on September 25, 1903. From 1921 to
1923 Rothko attended Yale University on a full
scholarship and then moved to New York City.
In 1924 he enrolled in the Art Students League,
studying with George Bridgman and Max Weber,
in whose class he befriended Louis Harris. He
was given his first one-man exhibition in 1933
at the Museum of Art in Portland and his first
in New York a few months later at the Contemporary
Arts Gallery.
The New York exhibition included landscapes,
nudes, portraits, and city scenes. At the end
of 1934 Rothko participated in an exhibition
at the Gallery Secession, whose members included
Louis Harris, Adolph Gottlieb, Ilya Bolotowsky
and Joseph Solman; several months later they
left the Secession to form their own group,
the Ten, which exhibited together eight times
between 1935 and 1939. Rothko's paintings in
the Ten's exhibitions were expressionist in
style. During this period he was employed by
the WPA (Works Progress Administration), where
he produced many subway scenes emphasizing the
isolation of the riders.
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