Untitled c#1944–46 is a delicate watercolour, pen, ink and pencil drawing that predates Mark Rothko’s paintings in the NGA collection and is dramatically different in style. Like many Abstract Expressionist painters in New York at the time, Rothko developed an interest in Surrealism, mythology and spiritual symbols before which his early style of broadly-painted realism gave way. This drawing displays a thin, sinuous line that curves from the upper left down to the lower right and another that is centred and vertical. Both scroll-like marks cross a section of repeated horizontal lines in the lower half of the drawing. This arrangement can be recognised as musical notation—the symbols of a staff and clef. Furthermore, the large circular shape in the lower quadrant of the drawing appears as the sound hole in the base of a musical instrument, perhaps a mandolin, with its thin neck standing straight and embellished with strings, blue machine heads and an orange wooden scroll.

As a young man, Rothko had taught himself to play both the mandolin and the piano; throughout his career as a painter, music was a constant source of inspiration and connection to the spiritual. Even the manner in which Rothko titled his paintings, by number or colour, had a distinct relation to musical composition. Although the overall style of the drawing is representational, Rothko has taken special care in his selection of colour, contrasting the orange and blue of his forms against lightly washed, abstract fields that serve as a backdrop. The ghostly shadow along the upper section of the composition is a curious element; this geometric form hints at the rectangular slabs Rothko later established as his signature style.

Michael Lloyd and Michael Desmond^[i]

^[i] 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.