No. 3/No. 13 (Magenta, Black, Green on Orange) - Mark Rothko

A fine art print of Mark Rothko's 1953 Abstract Expressionist work, featuring his signature stacked rectangular forms and soft-edged colour fields.

Mark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz in Latvia, became a central figure in the New York School of painters during the mid-twentieth century. This work, created in 1953, belongs to his mature period, during which he refined his signature format: stacked rectangular forms that appear to hover within a larger field of colour.

The composition consists of distinct horizontal bands. A deep, dark rectangle dominates the upper portion, framed by a thin strip of magenta at the top edge. Below this, a lighter, off-white band acts as a transition to the lower section, where a block of green sits against a ground of warm orange. The edges of these rectangles are not hard or defined; instead, they possess a soft, feathered quality, suggesting that the colours are bleeding into one another or floating in space.

Rothko applied thin layers of oil paint, often using a dry brush technique to create a luminous surface. This method allows light to reflect off the canvas in a way that gives the colours a sense of internal glow. By removing representational imagery, Rothko aimed to focus the viewer on the physical presence of the paint and the interaction between the hues. The scale of the original work is large, intended to envelop the viewer's field of vision. This fine art print captures the subtle tonal variations and the atmospheric quality of the original surface, providing a clear view of the artist's technique and his specific approach to colour relationships. It is a representative example of his work from the early 1950s, a period when he moved away from his earlier surrealist-influenced shapes toward the pure, meditative abstraction that defined his career.