"I feel so in tune with people like Shakespeare and Dickens that I often think that they must really have been Russian Jews who emigrated to New York," Mark Rothko once said. An intimate exhibition currently held at the Whitechapel Gallery brings to light the special relationship that existed between Britain and the Abstract Expressionist legend. It gathers rarely seen archive material relating to Rothko's 1961 Whitechapel solo show — the artist's first ever in the country — exhibited alongside his 1957 "Light Red Over Black," the first piece by the artist to be acquired by a British public collection.

The grainy installation shots lent by the Rothko estate are particularly moving. They are black and white, but the fascination exerted by Rothko's vibrant colors on the audience is palpable. In one of them a lady in hat, leaning against a pillar, appears lost in the picture's depth; the painted surface pulsates despite the photographic gray scale. Other documents highlight the friendship Rothko developed with several Post-War British artists during his first visit in the summer of 1959. The pictures of him and painter William Scott in Somerset have the intimacy of holiday snapshots. Rothko also went to the then art hub of St. Ives in Cornwall, where he met the likes of Terry Frost and Patrick Heron.

"Rothko in Britain" is part of a series of exhibitions exploring the Whitechapel Gallery's century-old archive. The show's purpose is as clear as it is convincing: it demonstrates how the 1961 exhibition marked a defining moment in the artist's late period, and started a love affair between Rothko and the British public. Indeed, it is with this show that the artist formalized the hanging height and light levels most favorable to the display of his immersive color field paintings. The show also led to his 1969 Tate donation of eight murals realized for the Seagram Building in New York. Tragically, they arrived at the gallery on February 25, 1970, the day of the artist's death. The "Rothko Room" is now a crown jewel of the Tate collection, and one of its most popular permanent exhibits.