David Anfam is a leading authority on modern American art. A regular contributor to The Burlington Magazine, he is the curator of several major Rothko exhibitions. His publications include Abstract Expressionism and Franz Kline: Black & White, 1950-1961.
"This is not a traditional catalogue raisonne, in which the facts
are dryly recorded, but a lively account of the feints and dodges
of an extremely complicated artist."—Dore Ashton, Washington Post
Book World
"A book for all seasons, and in spite of its size and weight, it
looks right and feels right. Somewhere in this volume you can find
just about everything you will want to know about what Rothko
painted between 1924 and his death in 1970. . . . This is a noble
book, and a bargain in today’s terms."—John Russell, New York Times
Book Review
"Anfam’s book is the ultimate Rothko monograph. More than an
exhibition record, it is a catalog raisonne: a complete
documentation of the artist’s paintings that gives an overview of
his art available nowhere else. . . . Authoritative and
well-written, it unearths sources of his art that most historians
have overlooked."—Kenneth Baker, San Francisco Chronicle
"A welcome development: it’s needed, it’s serious and it’s well
produced. . . . Anfam’s meticulous unearthing of nearly all of
Rothko’s literary and art historical sources for his imagery (or
lack of imagery) reveals the contest between inclusiveness (that
is, acknowledging the huge and multifarious culture of the human
race) and exclusiveness (getting down to visual essentials) that
was always a part of Rothko’s work. . . . [This] book is a
necessity."—Peter Plagens, Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Anfam is a splendid guide to the artist’s sources and themes, and
the color reproductions that are essential to a major Rothko study
are the truest of any published. A landmark in scholarship for one
of North America’s most sublime painters.”—Chicago Tribune
“This is not a traditional catalogue raisonné, in which the facts
are dryly recorded, but a lively account of the feints and dodges
of an extremely complicated artist. . . . Anfam has offered future
scholars ample material from which to speculate, and much to argue
with. Anfam’s own views are always carefully hedged with documents
and quotations, yet still manage to be provocative and sometimes
brilliant.”—Dore Ashton, Washington Post Book World
"This massive book marks a turning point. It enumerates 843 known
works, which must closely approximate the totality of those
surviving, from juvenilia of the 1920s to the last picture left
unfinished at Rothko’s death."—Sheldon Nodelman, Art in America
"Far and away the best monograph ever written on Rothko."—Yve-Alain
Bois, Artforum
“The judges considered that Anfam’s book set new standards for
catalogue raisonnés of paintings of this period and, as John
Golding observed, the introductory essays ‘contain the most
visually analytic account of Rothko’s development ever
written’.”—Caroline Elam, The Art Newspaper
"A necessary purchase for research and academic libraries."—Library
Journal
"Of the dignity of Rothko’s painting and of the gravity of its
significance, however, we cannot be reminded enough. Mark Rothko:
the Works on Canvas abundantlydoes so. Its almost innumerable
documentary facts will make it the fundamental starting point for
any future scholarship on Rothko, and there is no doubt that David
Anfam’s monumental book . . . will be as enduring as it is
revelatory."—Alan Shipway, The Art Book
"Mark Rothko: The Works on Canvas is everything that a catalogue
raisonné should be, and more besides. . . . We see Rothko the
painter whole as never before. . . . This volume establishes Anfam
as our greatest Rothko authority and is one of the most significant
contributions to the history of twentieth-century art to have been
made in recent years."—John Golding, Burlington Magazine
Winner of the 2000 Mitchell Prize for the History of Art
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