CURRENT EXHIBITION
The Seduction of Light: Ammi Phillips | Mark Rothko
October 7, 2008—March 29, 2009
Ammi Phillips (1788–1865) and Mark Rothko (1903–1970), two American masters disparate in time, place, and presentation, pursued the creation of inner light through the vehicle of color. For both artists, color was a complex language of its own, used to invent and investigate the depths offered by the deceptive flat plane of the canvas. Organized by senior curator Stacy C. Hollander, the exhibition will include large-scale canvases from Rothko's classic period of the 1950s and 1960s, when he had already transcended representation and reached the purity of meaning held solely in color, texture, depth, and proportion. Portraits from around 1815 through the 1830s survey Phillips’s greatest achievements through the unique perspective of color and demonstrate shifts in canvas size and shape, color choices, translucency, opacity, and surface texture.
The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated publication with essays by Ms. Hollander and Bonnie Clearwater, director and chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, and former director of the Mark Rothko Foundation.
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