Mark Rothko retrospective to open at Fondation Louis Vuitton in October 2023

Mark Rothko’s work is set to be the focus of a major new exhibition from Fondation Louis Vuitton in October 2023, marking the first retrospective in France since 1999’s exhibition at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.

A comprehensive selection of works traces the career of Rothko (1903 – 1970), from his early figurative works to his most well-known abstract pieces. The exhibition will encompass around 115 works, loaned by the artist’s family and private collections, as well as institutions including the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC and the Tate Gallery in London. 

The exhibition begins with an exploration of Rothko’s works produced in the 1930s, before he developed his distinctive abstract expressionism and leaning towards deep red and ochre hues. Here, his early scenes and landscapes are studied, leading into his 1940s exploration of spatial proportions characterised in ‘multiforms’. 

Classic works of the 1950s sit alongside Rothko’s commissions, including the 1958 series of wall paintings he created for the original Four Seasons restaurant, designed by Phillip Johnson, in New York’s Seagram Building, the construction of which was overseen by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (closed in 2016, its interiors were reimagined by Isay Weinfeld in 2018). 

Also faithfully included is the permanent room dedicated to the artist by the Phillips Collection in 1960, the ‘Rothko Room’, which the artist helped design. 

Curators Suzanne Pagé and Christopher Rothko, with François Michaud and Ludovic Delalande, Claudia Buizza, Magdalena Gemra and Cordélia de Brosses, place Rothko works alongside Alberto Giacometti’s large-scale figures in a generously proportioned room in the Frank Gehry-designed Fondation Louis Vuitton, in a nod to Rothko’s vision for his uncompleted Unesco commission. 

‘Mark Rothko’ at the Fondation Louis Vuitton takes place 18 October 2023 to 2 April 2024

fondationlouisvuitton.fr/en/events/mark-rothko