By 1947 Rothko’s paintings had become completely abstract, his compositions made up of irregular areas of colour. Untitled (Multiform) 1948 is one of a small group of untitled works, collectively known as Multiforms,^[i] painted immediately preceding the mature works for which Rothko is best known. In these transitional paintings Rothko abandoned the surrealist-inspired personal myths and classical themes evident in works such as Untitled c#1944–46, moving towards a fully abstract vocabulary. Writing in 1947, he described his paintings as ‘dramas’, but added that the use by postwar artists of figurative subject matter to convey emotions and experiences was no longer practicable: ‘with us the disguise must be complete. The familiar identity of things has to be pulverised in order to destroy the finite associations with which our society increasingly enshrouds every aspect of our environment.’^[ii] In Untitled (Multiform) irregular areas of colour contract and expand, project and retract, as the eye roves over the surface; the changes in tone between darker and lighter areas are so gradual that depth within the painting remains indeterminate. The three large rectangular blocks of colour are precursors—from 1949 the artist made these the subject of all subsequent paintings.

Michael Lloyd and Michael Desmond^[iii]

^[i] The title Multiform does not seem to have been used before Rothko’s death. It appears for the first time in the catalogue for the Rothko exhibition at the 1970 Venice Biennale. It is thought by the staff of the Marlborough Gallery, who prepared this catalogue, that Rothko used the term Multiform generically when referring to his transitional paintings of 1948–49; Bonnie Clearwater, correspondence with the Australian National Gallery, 12 July 1984.

^[ii] Mark Rothko, ‘The Romantics were prompted’, Possibilities, no 1, Winter 1947–48, p 84.

^[iii] Adapted and updated from Michael Lloyd and Michael Desmond, European and American Paintings and Sculptures 1870–1970 in the Australian National Gallery, Australian National Gallery Canberra, 1992, pp 248–9, by Steven Tonkin and Jaklyn Babington.