February 25, 2025 • 43 mins
Christopher Rothko never thought he would have a career in the art world but he has become the driving force behind preserving his father, painter Mark Rothko’s, legacy. Christopher along with his sister Kate are the copyright holders to their father’s work and oversee exhibitions of Mark Rothko paintings around the world. With a background in clinical psychology, Christopher is also known for his writing about his father's art, life, and legacy, as well as his own reflections on the emotional and philosophical aspects of Mark Rothko’s paintings. Through his books and public work, Christopher has enabled the art of Mark Rothko to continue to resonate with audiences worldwide.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Thing from My Heart Radio. My guest today has a
PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Michigan, but
hasn't practiced in over twenty years. As is often the case,
life had other plans for Christopher Rothcoe. Today he is
(00:23):
the driving force behind preserving the work and legacy of
his father, painter Mark Rothko. Christopher Rothko, along with his
sister Kate, are the copyright holders to their father's work
and oversee exhibitions of Mark Rothko's paintings all over the world.
It's a job Taylor made for the Rothkoe family, but
it was not the path that Christopher Rothko saw for
(00:45):
himself until later in life.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
My intention was to live my own life and independent
of the artwork, not by any means arm's length. But
I had some administrative duties, but it was my intention
to have my own career and that was something to
be very much apart from them.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
The artworks in clinical psychology.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
In clinical psychology, before that, I was going to be
a musicologist. I kept trying on different hats and then
in the end the Rothco had is the one that fit,
and it kind of snuck up on me. I don't
think I would have done this if I didn't have
my own practice and hadn't gotten my degree. I'd gone
out there, I'd done what I intended to do, and
then I found that the artwork appealed more.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
And that's okay.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Was there a moment, Was there a clarifying moment for
you where all of a suddenly you were said, I'm
going to go do this now?
Speaker 2 (01:27):
No, I think it was cumulative. But there were a
series of exhibitions happening, mostly in Europe in the late
nineties and early two thousands, and typically done by younger
curators who hadn't worked with my father's work before. And
my phone just kept bringing and they had questions for me,
and to my surprise, I actually knew the answers to
the questions and answer to the question. And they invited
me to help light and hang the works, which again
(01:48):
I found that I had more to contribute than I realized,
and I really enjoyed it, and I felt like I
had a kind of a knack for it, and I
really just voted with my feet. I kept taking on
more and more of those projects, and I stopped taking
on new patients and eventually especially involved with a move
back to New York City where I was going to
have to get relicensed and there was could be a
real process to rebuilding my practice. It just made a
(02:09):
lot of sense to do Rothko. But if there hadn't
been the passion there, I wouldn't have done it. I
would have proceeded with the psychology.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Now, talk about your psychology career. When your father was
gone and then your mother was gone months later.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Correct, that's right. You were raised and ann Arbor. Correct.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
No, in actually Columbus, Ohio, the enemy territory for people
from at Harbor. My mother's sister lived in Columbus, and
I lived with her and her husband during elementary school
and into junior high.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
And what was it in your background that invited you
to study clinical psychology?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
You know, it's I just found that always the way
that I looked at the world. I was a literature
major in college. I always was fascinated with deeply psychological literature.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
I wrote a.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Huge paper on Moby Dick and another one on a
couple of different Doscasci novels. And I've always been fascinated
by how people tick and what are motivations? Are the
ones that we maybe aren't so conscious of until they
sort of keep up on us and bite us in
the ass.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
And where did you go undergrad?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I was a Yale undergraduate and then at Michigan, if
that's the anobrapy s.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
I was at Michigan or graduate school.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
For graduate school in clinical psychology.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
And that's right right.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
I only asked people where they went to college, not
with an eye toward prestige, but more toward climate. You know,
when I learned the number of people that went to
Bennington College, I'm like, oh my god, they all went
up there and froze to deaf. So you studied clinical
psychology and to the best of your ability, without you know,
violating anything. What kind of work did you do, Like
(03:35):
you saw patients, your your patients, you interacted with them
on a whole breadth of topics and problems and so forth.
Or did you focus on.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Something well, well, yes, and especially when you're first starting out,
you can't be so selective about what you do if
you want to have patients. So the distinction you're making
between psychiatrists who can prescribe in psychologists who who don't
of course, the insurance companies like the psychiatrists a lot
more because it's you know, it's expensive. Those medications are
there still cheaper than paying for an hour our psychotherapy.
Psychologists have actually gotten a little bit of the squeeze
(04:05):
over the last few decades because of that. But yes,
I did a full range, always adult, an adolescent. I'd
done a training with adolescents and what's called a day hospital,
a partial hospitalization program, and I found if you work
with adolescents you get a lot of referrals because adolescents
are tough. It's really rewarding because they are still so
capable of making change and everything is so raw. But
(04:26):
you know, most of them don't want to talk to
you know. I was, I think twenty eight years old
when I saw my first adolescent, and the first thing
they said was could I see somebody younger? So, you know,
if you're the other and they're not there because they
wanted to be there, there because somebody made them go.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
So you eventually wound up working with a lot of kids.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
I did.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I ended up working with a lot of adolescents, never
young kids. Except for a very brief moment in my
training during what period of time, what years it would
have been, like ninety six to ninety nine.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Right, because I was wondering how much children in the
analytical field are changing and how different they are because
of devices, paths. And my kids are in a private
school because they were in a full language immersion program.
But I didn't have any problem with them going to
public school. In fact, down the street from where we
live in the city is a great public school, but
we wanted to go to this particular school. And I'm
(05:15):
steeped in parents not just in our school but elsewhere where.
They give the kids the meds, even if it's reluctant,
they give them to them early. I mean, these kids
are on ADHD medication when they're you know, seven, eight
years old, and I'm like, I mean that was just
not a part of the landscape when I was a
kid at all.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, No, it's absolutely psychiatric medications have changed things. And
of course, as you alluded to, having phones in their
hands and a really young age really changes things.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
And maybe maybe those two things go together.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Right, they need psychiatric meds because they have so much
of a stimulation from those phones. Some day one we're
starting to see some studies now about how damaging that
can be, especially for younger kids.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Well, I find also that I mean, yes, I would
blame devices maybe, and there's obviously a linkage between devices
in this, but I would also think to myself that
I'm just horrified about how their face is ground into
the news and events and the darkness of the world.
The world is an unsafe place, and they know that
there's no we don't really prioritize making them believe that
(06:17):
they're in a safe world. They walk out into the
world as a young kid, unshielded, you know, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
My version of theirs.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
We moved back to New York in the year two
thousand from Michigan, right, and nine to eleven happened thirteen
months after we got here, and we knew lots of
parents who were like sitting there watching the news with
their kids, you know, their four year olds, their two
year olds watching with them, and we really just kept
it off. We thought, like, they don't need to see
these pictures. They're going to learn about it, they're going
to hear about it. Eventually, they'll see the pictures, but
(06:44):
they don't need to see that.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Now as your wife, you're married.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
I think so, right, I was this morning.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Right right, exactly, that's I'm going to use that. Your wife,
where's she from?
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Originally she's originally from Long Island.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
What town Comack? I know, Comac Rosie o'donald coming.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Yes, yes, actually she knew it was the Donald growing up.
That's funny. Yeah, she's an attorney. Aha.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Now I guess what I come back to, And if
and if you don't want to answer this question, I'm
completely fine. So your father passed when he was you
were six, So you so your father dies and kills himself,
as everybody knows, and then your mother, who was not
as healthy as one might hope. She was an alcoholic.
So you're left with the mother at home. And I'm
(07:26):
even assuming when you were a child, even younger, if
you can recall that, was your father gone all day
in a studio.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Yeah, but he kept kind of bankers hours. I mean
he was gone all day, but he was home in
the evenings for dinner. I mean he really was not
like down at the Cedar dark bar with public and
decoting and all those guys like tanking away all night.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Peter Taffert. Yeah, yeah, but he was around on a
reliable basis. But was your childhood something that might have
propelled you into the first stage of your work.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
You know, I do I do get asked that. The
answer is yes, I don't have any direct experience of that.
You know, I was always a pretty happy kid, and
those you know, years five and six were pretty bad.
They were really difficult, and my parents both both my
parents were not in good shape, but my sister looked
out for me a lot, and my mother, you know,
she was not in good shape, but she was still
very much a functional malfunction.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So I don't know how that launched me on my
current trajectory. But my sense is because I think my
father also looked at the world quite psychologically. My senses
that I got that from him, and it wasn't my
trying to find answers desperately having had this terrible period
in my childhood.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Where'd your dad grow up?
Speaker 3 (08:32):
He well, he was born in what's today Latvia.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I mean, I think he thought of it as Russian Empire,
had been for a couple hundred years, and they moved
to Portland, Oregon when he was ten years old, where
my daughter.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Lost, oh different place in those days.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
When did he come to her?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
So he got a scholarship to Tale when he was eighteen,
and he lasted there a couple of years, lost his scholarship.
They had a very Yale would go back and forth
between welcoming Jews and saying we have too many Yes,
So his scholarship got taken away after his freshman year.
He toughed it out for another year and then he
just left and he went to New York and just
as he put it, bummed around and starved a bit.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
So he went to Yale and studied painting. Was he somebody?
Is that what he studied there? No, not at all.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
He really had no contact with it. I mean some
some exposure to the arts, but no, he hadn't taken
art classes, didn't take any. He was studying economics, in history,
in math at Yale and he came to New York
and he actually got involved in theater. He actually got
involved in theater, but not on a professional level, although
he did do some I think paid summerstock. He told
the story for years and we thought it was just
(09:31):
him bsing, but he said that he had been in
a play and that Clark Gable had been his understudy.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
And isn't it isn't that isn't that funny?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
But in fact, that's the funniest thing I've ever But
in fact we found the program and there he is
listed in the lead role, and Clark Gable is like
well down and apparently was he it was had a
much more minerral but was also my father's understudy.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Kid. No, so it's really chewed out the story.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
My father's story in this we have no way of confirming,
is that Clark Gable only got a part because his
girlfriend was the director. But in any case, so that
but my father had no contact with art until a
friend invited him to the Art Students League to a
drawing class one day, just kind of on to lark.
My father went and he fell in love with it,
and oh my god. But it was largely self taught,
just took a couple of courses there and was largely
(10:18):
self taught and doing this evenings and weekends because he
had to work odd jobs and had he had to
pay the rent, which occasionally he did so, so.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
You guys weren't alive then, No, no, no, no, this
is this is your mother as in the theater.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
No, my mother was an artist too. My mother was
a graphic artist and they got introduced by a mutual friend.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Now, your father goes to the Art Students League. I
find that intriguing because I have a few friends of
mine who passed through there and it was maybe not
where they landed as a career, but they recall it
as one of the most beautiful times of their life
being able to go there. And your dad was how
old when you were born? Almost sixty? Wow, we could
(10:59):
have been great. And he was famous and I low
that word, but he was famous and successful. How long
before you were born? You were born into a roth
go the Rothko that was your father was successful.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yes, yes, but my sister was not. My sister's thirteen
years older than me, and she was born in nineteen fifty.
And that's just the moment he starts getting discovered along
with the other New York artists, new York School artists,
I should say. But you know, even though he got
discovered at that point and he starts having some exhibitions,
he can't support himself just painting until about the time
I'm born shortly before that. So it's you know, it's
still is a long, long, hard slug. And you know
(11:35):
he was born in nineteen oh three, so it's really
he's almost fifty years old before he gets recognition and
almost sixty before he really can just just be an artist.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Now, your father passed away and you were six, so
many years go by before you're doing these installations and
things like that was your entree into that world. That's right,
and you're lighting and installing and so forth. The current
position you hold is what is your title?
Speaker 3 (11:59):
I don't have a title. I'm self employed as i'm
mart those. I'm an occasional curator.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
But you know, for me, it's been the collaboration work
with professionals in the field, with you know, just really
brilliant people who have completely different viewpoints about my father's work.
That's been incredibly satisfying to have those kind of interactions.
It's also given me an opportunity to write a lot.
I went into college thinking I was going to emerge
a writers. Somehow I didn't. But I've written as a
music critic and other things over the years. But this
really got me a chance to be an essays and
(12:27):
I've written now twenty some essays on my father's art
and related topics. And I lecture a good deal too,
which you know, if you'd asked me twenty years ago,
would I enjoy that? I'd tell you no, no, I
really I don't like the public landlight. But in fact
it's been great.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
I see this bibliography of things related to you and
your father. I want to get to the chapel for
a moment, because I mean I live in East Tampton,
Long Island and Amagansett, and the Demon Hills were a
big presence out there. The Demon Hills donated the structures
on their property that was sold. They sold their private
land of fifty eight or so in front acres to
(13:00):
two people. They built two houses on fifty acres, and
the houses are not really compatible because they skin them alive.
I mean, they just all the trees are gone, all
the growth has gone, and you see this soaring or
this looming pathway down to these houses toward the ocean.
But the Demonills sold their property and they took the
structures on the property and donated them and the money
(13:23):
to restore them to become town hall of the town
of Eastampa brother not the village. And I mentioned that
only because you know, I mean, everybody knew the Demonills
out there and so forth. So the chapel, it was
their idea. That's why it's in Houston. How did your
father end up or this thing end up in Houston.
This was after he passed away.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
No, no, well he was alive. No, well before he
passes by. Okay.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
So they had known my father for a number of years.
They were instrumental in getting him one of his early
big shows, which is at the Contemporary Art Museum in
Houston in nineteen fifty seven. They've been collecting his work
for a number of years. And then it was really
Jean Demonil had the idea to make a chapel. They
were deeply, deeply religious people, spiritual Catholics, and they were
collecting a broad range of art, particularly contemporary art, and
(14:05):
he had an idea to create a chapel and a
quiet place for reflection and one that would speak to
the believer or the non believer with a different voice.
So not one that's going to be filled with the
crucifixes and PTRs, but in fact use contemporary art to
engage the seekers. Really, and they thought that that sort
of modern language of art would connect with a modern
(14:26):
generation in a way that older churches were not.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
So they immediately thought about my father.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
They knew about the mural series he'd done for the
Four Seasons restaurant, which he had withdrawn. They thought about
those works, they approached him and he said, no, no, no,
I want to do something from scratch. I want to
do something that's specific to this idea, specific to this place,
and in fact, I want to design the space as well,
says in nineteen sixty four, and he basically put everything
else aside for the next three years to create not
(14:51):
just the paintings, but the whole interior of that space.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
It's really one artwork.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Remind people, by the way, what the Four Seasons restaurant
Brolio was about.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
So he was hired to decorate a private dining room
at the Four Seasons Restaurant by by Philip Johnson, the
famous architect. To my father, it was not a decoration job.
It was he was going to create a temple basically
inside this restaurant. And over courts of a couple of years,
there are different visions for what that was going to
be clashed too much, and my father realized he's never
going to make artwork that anyone's going to look at seriously.
(15:23):
When they're cutting private deals. The wine is flowing, you know,
there's you know, the most expensive food in New York
in front of them.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
They're not going to look at his art work.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
So he eventually withdraws from that from that commission, having
painted like five times more paintings than he needed to
for the commission. But he got completely caught up in
the whole idea. What happen of the pain Did he
destroy them?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
No? No, no, he never destroyed anything. No, never destroy anything.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
From the earliest works from that, we have hundreds of
sheets of you know, sometimes just doodles, but little line
drawings and things. Never destroyed anything, and continued to hang
some of his early work at home. So it's home
was at East ninety sixth Street, or that was the
home I knew. My sister grew up in house kitchen,
and the studio was where well, the last studio again,
which was rented for that chapel commission, because he wanted
(16:05):
to be able to mock up three walls of this
chapel was a carriage house in East sixty ninth Street.
Did d Minills gift him that, well, they rented it
for him and then and then he maintained he took
it over in the three years that he was still painting.
After the commission was done, he took over the rented
that and stayed in that studio because he just found
it such an inspiring space.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Rothcoe Foundation Conservator Christopher Rothcoe. If you enjoyed conversations with
the families of legendary artists, check out my episode with
the children of Leonard Bernstein, Jamie and Alex Bernstein.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
There was this aunt Clara who moved to Florida, and
so she sent all her furniture over to her brother
Sam's house, and along with all the couches and breakfronts,
arrived this upright piano. Our dad was ten years old.
The piano got hauled in to the house, and as
(17:02):
our father told it, he touched the piano and that
was it. He knew it's one of those stories, and
he taught himself theory. He just played the piano.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
He could figure it all out. To hear more of
my conversation with Jamie and Alex Bernstein, go to Here's
the Thing dot org. After the break, Christopher Rothcobe reveals
what his father would have thought of the current price
tag on his paintings and the commodification of art today.
(17:42):
I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the thing. In
March of twenty ten, playwright John Logan's Red made its
Broadway debut after opening in London the year before. Red
tells the story of the Rothcombe Murals that the painter
was commissioned to create for the world famous Four Seasons
restaurant and his ultimate decision to walk away. I wanted
(18:03):
to know what Christopher Rothkoe thought of the depiction of
his father in the show.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
There are a lot of very compelling things about read,
but it's not truly truly a biographical work. The two
things that are not true about his first the assistant,
who is his foil? And all of this is and
he really bullies throughout most of the play. It didn't
really exist. And my father was certainly highly opinionated about art.
It was very passionate at art, and I think it's
great ninety minute play, really about a philosophy of art
(18:30):
and a philosophy of life. But he would not have
I don't think he would have beaten up on his
assistant for an hour and a half.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
He wasn't rude, no, no, he was.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
He was actually quite caring. He was a big, big
hearted man. I think you can see that in the
art work. But you know that said we get together
with his artist buddies and they would certainly debate into
the night. You know, they're different ideas of what's important
artwork and what is the role of the artists, and
you know, and especially when he's younger, a lot of
a lot of political ideas as well.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
So well, I think it's interesting to me that someone
for dramatic effect, obviously they create a character. I mean,
I'm glad to know that.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
I thought there was some guy walking around New York.
They talked him to himself for twenty years after your
father was gone, So damage from that whole relationship. But
the other thing is this idea of money and wealth
and paintings. Your father he hated that the speculative market
and painting which we have, which is Waltwall Now, he
was a really down on that.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
I mean, he was adamant that an artist should be
well paid, that they should be able to support themselves
to their livelihood. He was very pleased when he had
some success, and he he would sometimes self from a
studio and he would you insist on getting what he
felt he should get for his paintings. That said, when
it became a commodity, it really started to bother him.
And if he saw it today, you know, with investment
(19:45):
groups buying his paintings rather than people who love the paintings, oh,
he would be he would be devastated.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
I was often said. I thought that was a term
as to where the painter their estates should be paid
for every transaction of the painting. If you take a
painting and you buy it for four million dollars sold
for twenty million dollars ten years later, you've got to
kick back some.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Big on that to the estate. So there actually is
a term for that.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
As a French chirwan, it's called the delt de suite,
which means you basically, it's the right of what follows.
So in France it's and much of the European unions
it's ten percent. Yeah, and the Artist Right Society, who
works with our estate but many others as well, has
been pushing for years to try and have something similar
in the US. But America is you know, America is
about the art of the deal, right, the businessman who
(20:27):
makes a clever purchase.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
And I don't think we're going to see that for
a while.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Now, one would imagine from a layman's perspective that it's
easier to knock off a wroth Code because it's the
classic frame and two bands of color or three bit
or a box. It's it's his interaction of color. And
I think to myself, it's much easier to knock off
wroth code than these much more complex, detailed, intricate figures.
(20:52):
And then I thought to myself, is it the opposite
within in the modern world, because of all the resources
that are available to do, is how have you dealt
with in your career with this now that you're in charge,
so to speak, knockoffs of your father's paintings.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Well, so I think there there's a certain format that's
familiar and people sort of recognized, oh, that's a Rothco
or it's Rothcoe, like we see them knocked off in
advertisements all the time. But what's hard to do is
create the magic. And you know, there's nowhere to hide
if you make a mistake, there's nowhere for it to hide.
You have to be pretty good to make something really
wonderful happen from those very simple elements. But in fact, yes,
(21:28):
we we and this is not the ory. We this
is my sister and me because we're the co copyright holders.
You know, we've had to deal with this over the years.
We know that my father was really protective of his art.
He really wanted to see only be seen in the
best circumstances and really in situations, particularly museums, where people
could go and appreciate it and really have, you know,
commune with the painting if you will. So the very
you know, the very idea that it's used in advertising,
(21:51):
for example, was something that he would not be happy about.
So you know, when we do see that, we use
our copyright agency. We try to get the ads taken down.
Sometimes it's successful, sometimes it's not, but you know, for
us it's and I really have really learned this from
doing big exhibitions the work. When it works, it's so
much an experience. It's so much that interaction between the
(22:11):
viewer and the painting that we try to limit how
many other ways there are to see the paintings or
things that are.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Like roth Goes. They wanted people to really have that
face to face interaction.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Where's the location around the world, in the US and
in New York Literally, I want to ask all three
that hangs the most of your father's art.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Well, the National Gallery of Art in Washington would they
were the recipients of my father's foundation. That's a complex story,
but let's just leave it at that. And so they
have a dedicated Rothko room on the top floor of
one of the towers of the Impay Building, and they
often have roth Goes dotted elsewhere in their collection. They're
also incredibly generous alone in their works to Rothco exhibitions elsewhere, but.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
They consistently have a room.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
MoMA has for the last five years had a room
up They have I think ten roth Goes on canvas
plus more on paper. And the Metropolitan has also hung
room off and on for the last several years. But
they're major Rothko holdings in Los Angeles at the Houston Houston,
at the Menil Collection. Of course, the Rothko Chapel is
its own artwork, but La Mocha has a fabulous collection
(23:13):
of Rothko's. A Museum of the Artistitute of Chicago has
three major Rothkoes, so they're dotted around this country. And
then the Tate Gallery in London they have a set
of those murals that my father painted for the Four Seasons,
as well as three other wonderful painters.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
And one your father painted for the Four Seasons are
on display at the Tate.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
They have nine of the thirty three, so he put
together the others. He put together a group and gifted
them to the Tates in nineteen seventy because he had
such good interactions with them and with the British public
around his artwork. So they've had that Rothko room basically
on a more or less permanent display for the last
fifty years. And then there's another group in Japan at
the calm War Museum, a group of seven that was
(23:50):
a group that my sister and I put together and
they've created a dedicated room, and the others are at
the National Gallery and a few in private collections.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
What's a book you would recommend which I'm going to
run out the door and go buy it right now,
that shows this field of paintings of your father's. If
I want to see in a book what the Four
Seasons paintings were, what they look like, because I've never
seen them, I don't think. What do you think as
a book? That's a great book in terms of displaying
a sampling of your father's work.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Well, my sister and I put together the most comprehensive
book that's ever ever been done a few years ago.
It's a resolute published it's just a public publishist in
two thousand and twenty three, I believe it was, and
it's a large slipcase volume. It's just called Mark Rothko
and Rizzoli is a publisher, and I think there are
are two hundred and forty works. That's both paintings and
on paper. And then the Rothki Catalog reson of paintings
(24:40):
of just the paintings on canvas. It's over eight hundred
works and that's still in print, and that's a Yale University.
So both of those are going to get you more
enough Rothkie for a lifetime.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Enough bang for the buck there. I think it's interesting
that you say it's a strong presence of this stuff
in Japan. I'm wondering, does your father's work this is
a glib word, but does it play better in certain
parts of the world than others? Absolutely absolutely did the
Japanese love his work. They were early collectors of his work.
There are major paintings in multiple collections around Japan, both
private and public, and they have this Miural Room, and
(25:10):
there's going to be There was a really good show
in ninety six there, and we're going to do another
show in twenty twenty eight. That is not my show,
but working with a dear friend of mine who's a
fabulous curator, Sorommi Hayashi, and she has a fabulous team.
This could be shown at multiple locations around Japan and
twenty twenty eight. Now, you mentioned something about the gestalt
(25:30):
of your father's paintings. You approached it that way. I think,
what did you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (25:35):
You know, it's interesting In the course of doing this
exhibition in Paris that was last year and which had
I think eight hundred and fifty thousand.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Visitors, which was remarkable.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
But I did a lot of tours during that time
and somebody actually pulled me aside at one point we
say and said to me, you know, I noticed you
never get up close to the paintings. You're never like
looking at the details. You're always standing back. And it's true,
and I do that with my father's work. I do
that with other work as well, but especially my father's.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
There are a lot of details.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
There are a lot more details than people would think
in these big, broad, abstract works, but in fact it's
all additive. It's all these different layers of color. There's
a summation and sort of one feeling that you get
from the painting. And so while it's interesting to see
how it's made, I think the idea is to have
a conversation with the painting. Through that painting, have a
(26:21):
conversation with my father about what's important in the world,
what's our common human experience, Where are you at psychologically
right now? And you don't get that from looking at oh,
there's a little hint of white coming out here. You
get that from actually taking in the whole painting. And
it's almost a full body experience it really, it's beyond
just the sensation of looking when I go.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
To museums and I want to look at art, and
of course art for me is as much as paintings,
and on an even keel with paintings is film and photography.
I went to the Prato once because I was there
making a film and I was off this day, and
I realized I couldn't devour it in a day or
a week, but I spent two days and I walked
(27:02):
one section of it, and then I finally get to
what I'm after, which is the Velasquez christ that's at
the Prado, and I finally confronted towards the end of
the second day. It's kind of at the buzzer here
I find the painting and I'm standing there. I mean,
the tears just start rolling down my face.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
I mean, this is my this is my Jesus, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
What I learned at that trip to the Prado in
those two days was you have to drain yourself and
you have to really really do the concentrated relaxation that
is the hallmark of Strasburg's teaching about acting. You must
empty yourself and just be present and just keep your
focus on yourself. And the same I found was seeing
and experiencing painting. I had to go and really really be,
(27:45):
turn my phone off and just to have everything happen.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
You know, when it was there. I get exhausted.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
In museums, like after a couple of hours, it is
draining because if you're really having those intense interactions, it
pulls a lot out of you. That is arguably my
favorite museum in the world, the Proudu, and it just
I'm incredulous.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
My father never saw it. I mean it was it
was all Franco controlled all through his adulthood. And he
never never went.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
And I mean he saw great alpgrad coach in Velascz
in New York, but he never saw the whole suite
that they had at the Prado, along with you know,
the Broigels and the Bosches and the Goyas and the Yeah,
it's pretty, it's.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Pretty incredible place.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Was he much of a traveler, No, hated to travel,
didn't want to leave the studio, so didn't want to
leave the studio, would not fly. So all he went
three trips to Europe, all by boat and almost exclusively
in Italy. So I have an upcoming exhibition, last one
I'm going to do in Fernanzi in Florence. Not so
we've we've this, this show has almost happened. A show
(28:42):
contemporary ardor now for the not in their own, not
in their collection. Occasionally they'll do, you know, comparisons, or
they'll do they'll do discussions between contemporary and older art.
But it's complicated working in Italy because all the museums
are controlled by the municipalities and the government changes, which
it does frequent.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Then your exhibition is paused, discarded, what have you.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
So this is our third go of it, but we're
working with a private foundation this time, so I'm pretty
confident it's going to come off next year or at
a year and a half.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
But that was my father.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
My father was just basically in a lifelong wrestling match
with all those Italian Renaissance artists, loving so much of
what they did, questioning a lot of what they did,
and really just seeing artists who were asking the same
kind of questions that he was, and fascinated by their
attempts to answer them and not always thinking that they
got it right.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
But he loved going.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
I mean, you'd spend eight or ten hours a day
in churches and museums in Italy and just take it
all in and just sort of put himself in their
shoes and look at each of these paintings or altarpieces
or frescoes or whatever it was, and try to imagine
what is he trying to say in that, How is
he trying to achieve it? What am I trying to
do in my own painting that's similar and different?
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Was your father a fan of other painters?
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Absolutely, there were many artists that he just worshiped Turner
primary Rembrandt. Also loved Turner and Rembrandt and Matis for
amongst more modern voices. So Matisa's famous red studio painting,
there's been there was a show at a moment few
years ago. It's now traveled to France. That painting came
to MoMA in the nineteen forties and my father went
there to look at it every single day for six months,
(30:18):
and he was just overwhelmed by the idea that you
could basically take a canvas and just make it just
covered in a color. And yes there are a few
details around the canvas, but you're just overwhelmed by the
redness the red studio Matis Matis. He loved Matis. He
loved both the simplicity but also the boldness to just
say what he wanted to say very directly, and not
(30:39):
to decorate the painting with things that were not necessarily
only put in exactly what he needed.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Was he a fan of any contemporary artists?
Speaker 2 (30:45):
I mean Matisa was contemporary. Matist dies not that long
before my father does, so, I mean he had a
very long life and my father did not. But I
mean he certainly not only looked at, but actually helped
promote some of the work of his contemporaries in the
New York school. Clifford Still, who was a few years
is older, he got him his first show at Peggy
Guggenheim's Art of the Century Gallery and actually curated that
(31:06):
and hung it himself. He I think was more than
respectful of the other artists in that school, but he
didn't hang.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Out with them at Somehowgonquin Roundtable of artists.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Of Continers Well, I mean they had their own little,
more private roundtable that He and Barnett Newman and Af
Gottlieb were particularly a trio, and they wrote little manifestos together.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
But they talked out art a lot, and eventually that
broke down.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
But he was friendly with Franz Klein, he was friendly
with Mother Well, and he certainly knew Paulack and Decooning
well too.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Christopher Rothko, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell a friend
and they sure to follow. Here's the thing on the
iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. When
we come back, Christopher Rothkoe details how the Mark Rothkoe
estate was defrauded after his father's death and who stood
to profit. I'm Alec Baldwin, and this is here's the thing.
(32:13):
Before Christopher Rothko was traveling the world as the ambassador
of his father's legacy, he worked as a clinical psychologist.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
He gave up his practice when he.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Moved to New York and began curating exhibits of his
father's work full time. I was curious if he missed
his previous career and whether he's ever considered returning to
that field of work.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
You know, I missed it when it was at its best.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
I worked at some clinics when I was in Michigan
that were just fabulous places where I could see people
at low feet and I saw a really broad spectrum
of people and could work with them multiple times a
week for extended periods of time. World of the HMO
came into being right around the time I got my degree,
and it really limited how much I could see patients
for how long And they sometimes come to me with
(32:59):
a diagnosis and a medication plan already, and what I
really could do with him was was very limited. So,
you know, there's been a lot of push and pulls
since then. But the freedom I had in those in
those early years. I think she has gone Yeah, I
think it's gone so.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Well that way, which and which you know, someone said
that to me. They said that some doctor I was
saying maybe said to me that it's all changed in
the sense that it's like you know, people lying sitting
in a chair, lying on a couch and talking. Those
days are over because it takes too long. You know,
that takes a long time.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Lock down.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
It costs money, crazily expensive. I mean, insurance won't pay
for that. So either you're charging a lot of money
or you it's hard. You this in New York, But
in other places where maybe your rent's not so high,
you can have a sliding scale, which is what I
was able to do in ann Arbor. I was able
to see people at different levels of fees. But you know,
in New York, you're you're hoping that you cover your
rent after like three weeks of doing therapy.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
What's next for you in terms of the you have
more books in you or do you have more you
wrote a memoir about growing up with.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Your father or no, no, I haven't ridden a memoir.
I've been actually urging my sister, who you knew HI
much better. She was nineteen when he died, so she
knew him much better. So we've been slowly she's she's
written a couple of biographical glass Hayes for catalogs, but
the family has been urging her to write her want
to you know, I think maybe she's slowly coming around.
You know, we both went off into our own professions.
She was a medical doctor, our psychologist or kind of
(34:16):
medicine to ship practice. Well she's retired now, but she
was a pathologist and really and then ended up being
a doctor who was doing blood chemistry. So yeah, so
she Yeah, she never really wanted the limelight. She does
two interviews, but she really wants to keep the focus
on our father.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
We couldn't have done this without your sister as well,
obviously could because you wouldn't be here right now if
the two of you hadn't been doing this on a
collaborative level of maintaining this.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
And one thing we didn't talk about all today, but
you know, the estate was defrauded. You were defrauded. How
this stay?
Speaker 2 (34:45):
So, My father's is one of the first artists foundations,
and it was set up for him by his accountant
slash lawyer, who turns out was also the CFO of
his gallery, and really as soon as my father passed,
before my mother even passed away, they started passing all
the major works from the estate to the gallery for
(35:06):
sale had never yet to Marlborough Gallley, which had never
been never been the understanding they were supposed to. They
were supposed to take the work and place it in museums.
They were supposed to do charitable work on behalf of
older artists who had not had success. And my sister
started catching wind of this. She was nineteen years old
and asked. These were people she'd known for years, the
executors of the estates, And I said, what's going on?
(35:29):
And they were just completely dismissive of her. They just
assumed she was stupid and she would go away. And
the more dismissive they were, the more curious she got.
And she ended up getting a lawyer and it found
and it turns out that they were really defrauding the state.
They were selling them to Marlborough Gallley for next to nothing,
and Marlborough was turning around and selling them for eight
ten times the price. So it was an incredibly long
legal battle. We had very little money to fight it,
(35:50):
and they almost bled us dry. But after years and
years and years of court battle and documents back and forth,
I mean we have filebox after filebox of legal documents,
we actually we actually prevailed, and we prevailed through two appeals,
and we actually got back quite a few paintings and
some financial compensation for the one set that we couldn't
get back.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
But it was really quite miraculous.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
And my sister gave up, I mean really some of
the best years of her life, while somehow she did
this while she was in college and medical school, going
to med school, having got her her first two children.
She somehow managed her to do this. And I am forever.
I'm forever in her dath.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Others hears she will never lord that over me because
she is just a very generous soul. But she is
forever my hero.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Is there a documentary I can recommend when I want
to study a subject, I don't just neecessarily reflexively go
into the documentary boo, because so many of them are
just very tepid and very you know, not that special.
Is there one of your father that you think is
worth people watching to learn more about him?
Speaker 2 (36:45):
There have been a bunch of documentaries I don't know
how many of them are readily available for streaming or
on DVD. But there was one that was done just
for the pandemic called Paintings Must Be Miraculous And it
was done actually by Oregon Public Broadcasting and then got
taken up by the PBS Masters series.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Oh, he was an American Masters. American Masters.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Wow. And yes, and well it's a well done film. Yeah, yeah, no,
it's just about him.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
When can we expect the next major exhibition of your
father's work in New York?
Speaker 3 (37:14):
So we're actually a little overdue for a New York show.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
There's been so much activity around around the world that
we haven't really had a big New York show. There
was a fabulous exhibition of his paintings on paper this
past year that was in Washington, but then it traveled
overseas to Oslo. So we really overdue for a New
York show. And yeah, it's my sister and I've actually
talked to each other. It's time to start talking to
museums and find out what's the right moment, what's the
right location. But yeah, I think before the end of
(37:37):
the decade. It's been since nineteen ninety nine, and what.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
You reveal from people who don't know as much as
I don't know much about this. What you insinuate there
is that the key to these exhibition is you've got
to gather and glean everything together that you want from
around the world. You have to get them to give
you the paintings. Correct.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Absolutely, I mean that was my big job with the
Paris Show. It's one hundred and fifteen works and they
all had to be they all had to be requested
and I mean timed. Yeah, and some of those were,
you know, immediate yeses, and others we went back three
or four times and then sometimes had to redirect. Yet, No,
it's especially you know, these are often large paintings and
very complex to ship, and people and institutions are reluctant
(38:17):
to let them go.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Are you perplexed by the prices that are attached to
your father's work?
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Now, Yeah, I'm perplexed by those prices. I'm perplexed by
a lot of prices in the.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
And so I don't think you can really put a
price on great art. But I'm you know, I think
it's I'm glad that's something that is so valued, because
I think there's a whole lot of garbage out in
the world that people you know, spend crazy amounts of
money for, and you know, the idea of life the
art is it's forever on some level, hopefully it lasts forever,
but certain the feeling behind it is something that is,
(38:49):
you know, reaching back and looking forward, as opposed to
some piece of plastic that it catches your fancy and
you pay some crazy amount of money.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
For what's the highest number of your father's paintings have
ever commanded?
Speaker 2 (39:01):
He has been whispered to me about private sales that
are well in excess of this, but publicly, I think
ninety two million was the highest. Eying, Yeah, it's I mean,
he be scratching his head. I mean, I think after
a certain number well below that, it's kind of monopoly money.
And obviously it's a very limited group of people who
can afford that.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
But hopefully he'd be scratching his head online at the
bank so he can do it head scratching there. Well,
was there anything you learned about your father surprised you
as you immersed yourself more in his work and.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
His over I think the moment of discovery for me
came in two thousand and three, two thousand and four
when I edited his book of philosophical writings. He wrote
actually a relatively young man, before he had any recognition
as an artist, and I see him really churning through ideas,
and I'm trying to get a hold of what he's
(39:49):
trying to say. He doesn't acknowledge at any point in
the book that he's an artist, doesn't have his he
never really sort of takes an eye position as an artist,
doesn't acknowledge.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
That he paints.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
But he's working through all of these questions, all of
these questions, and I realize as I'm editing this book
that not only am I asking myself, as a non artist,
a lot of the same questions. These are questions about painting,
but there are also questions about how we see the world.
I ask myself these same questions. I also realize that
he and I write quite similarly, which actually, to my mind,
(40:20):
gave me license to edit the book because I felt
like I was editing with a similar voice. And in
the end, it was the conversation about art that we
never had. And you know what, I'm not sure even
if he had lived another twenty five years, maybe we
never would have had it either. And this was a
chance to really be sort of inside his head a
little bit and have that talk.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
I mean sometimes it actually stop and say, you know, Dad,
what the hell are you saying?
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Trying to crack a nut that he had really, you know,
it was an unfinished manuscript, so he didn't some flesh
out the ideas sometimes and I had to do my
best tur into it that but it was fabulous because
I felt like it brought me closer to him in
this strange way posthumously, and it was really was really gift.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
You know, when you see paintings that speak to you
this way, that pull you in in this way, you
just want to learn more and more about the artists,
you know. I wanted to learn everything I could about
Caravaggio when I would go to Italy and stay at
the Hostler and go down to the Pope below and
go into the cathedral. They are the little mini cathedral
and there are the two framing side to side Caravaggio
(41:24):
there in front of that, which they had to protect
with some It looks like a not really very sturdy
security system. I mean, somebody could go in there to
throw these people who want to kill art. What do
you think about these people that are throwing buckets of
soup and all kinds of organic matter on paintings and
protesting climate change for example.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Well, I'm all for protesting climate change. I wish they
would find other ways to protest it. I mean, you know,
I think they're targeting artwork because they see these as
icons and trophies. But in fact, the artists who made these,
in almost every case struggled their whole life to try
and get their message across and get it before the public.
So it's I think they choose a very unfortunate target.
And uh, yeah, you know, I am all for making
(42:06):
a lot of noise about climate change. It's it's something
I'm passionate about. But please don't go into a museum
and damage something that belongs to all of us. It's there,
it's there for.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
All of us.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
My thanks to Christopher Rothkoe. This episode was recorded at
CDM Studios in New York City. We're produced by Kathleen Russo,
Zach MacNeice, and Victoria De Martin. Our engineer is Frank Imperial.
Our social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. Here's the thing
is brought to you by iHeart Radio
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Thing from My Heart Radio. My guest today has a
PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Michigan, but
hasn't practiced in over twenty years. As is often the case,
life had other plans for Christopher Rothcoe. Today he is
(00:23):
the driving force behind preserving the work and legacy of
his father, painter Mark Rothko. Christopher Rothko, along with his
sister Kate, are the copyright holders to their father's work
and oversee exhibitions of Mark Rothko's paintings all over the world.
It's a job Taylor made for the Rothkoe family, but
it was not the path that Christopher Rothko saw for
(00:45):
himself until later in life.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
My intention was to live my own life and independent
of the artwork, not by any means arm's length. But
I had some administrative duties, but it was my intention
to have my own career and that was something to
be very much apart from them.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
The artworks in clinical psychology.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
In clinical psychology, before that, I was going to be
a musicologist. I kept trying on different hats and then
in the end the Rothco had is the one that fit,
and it kind of snuck up on me. I don't
think I would have done this if I didn't have
my own practice and hadn't gotten my degree. I'd gone
out there, I'd done what I intended to do, and
then I found that the artwork appealed more.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
And that's okay.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Was there a moment, Was there a clarifying moment for
you where all of a suddenly you were said, I'm
going to go do this now?
Speaker 2 (01:27):
No, I think it was cumulative. But there were a
series of exhibitions happening, mostly in Europe in the late
nineties and early two thousands, and typically done by younger
curators who hadn't worked with my father's work before. And
my phone just kept bringing and they had questions for me,
and to my surprise, I actually knew the answers to
the questions and answer to the question. And they invited
me to help light and hang the works, which again
(01:48):
I found that I had more to contribute than I realized,
and I really enjoyed it, and I felt like I
had a kind of a knack for it, and I
really just voted with my feet. I kept taking on
more and more of those projects, and I stopped taking
on new patients and eventually especially involved with a move
back to New York City where I was going to
have to get relicensed and there was could be a
real process to rebuilding my practice. It just made a
(02:09):
lot of sense to do Rothko. But if there hadn't
been the passion there, I wouldn't have done it. I
would have proceeded with the psychology.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Now, talk about your psychology career. When your father was
gone and then your mother was gone months later.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Correct, that's right. You were raised and ann Arbor. Correct.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
No, in actually Columbus, Ohio, the enemy territory for people
from at Harbor. My mother's sister lived in Columbus, and
I lived with her and her husband during elementary school
and into junior high.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
And what was it in your background that invited you
to study clinical psychology?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
You know, it's I just found that always the way
that I looked at the world. I was a literature
major in college. I always was fascinated with deeply psychological literature.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
I wrote a.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Huge paper on Moby Dick and another one on a
couple of different Doscasci novels. And I've always been fascinated
by how people tick and what are motivations? Are the
ones that we maybe aren't so conscious of until they
sort of keep up on us and bite us in
the ass.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
And where did you go undergrad?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I was a Yale undergraduate and then at Michigan, if
that's the anobrapy s.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
I was at Michigan or graduate school.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
For graduate school in clinical psychology.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
And that's right right.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
I only asked people where they went to college, not
with an eye toward prestige, but more toward climate. You know,
when I learned the number of people that went to
Bennington College, I'm like, oh my god, they all went
up there and froze to deaf. So you studied clinical
psychology and to the best of your ability, without you know,
violating anything. What kind of work did you do, Like
(03:35):
you saw patients, your your patients, you interacted with them
on a whole breadth of topics and problems and so forth.
Or did you focus on.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Something well, well, yes, and especially when you're first starting out,
you can't be so selective about what you do if
you want to have patients. So the distinction you're making
between psychiatrists who can prescribe in psychologists who who don't
of course, the insurance companies like the psychiatrists a lot
more because it's you know, it's expensive. Those medications are
there still cheaper than paying for an hour our psychotherapy.
Psychologists have actually gotten a little bit of the squeeze
(04:05):
over the last few decades because of that. But yes,
I did a full range, always adult, an adolescent. I'd
done a training with adolescents and what's called a day hospital,
a partial hospitalization program, and I found if you work
with adolescents you get a lot of referrals because adolescents
are tough. It's really rewarding because they are still so
capable of making change and everything is so raw. But
(04:26):
you know, most of them don't want to talk to
you know. I was, I think twenty eight years old
when I saw my first adolescent, and the first thing
they said was could I see somebody younger? So, you know,
if you're the other and they're not there because they
wanted to be there, there because somebody made them go.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
So you eventually wound up working with a lot of kids.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
I did.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I ended up working with a lot of adolescents, never
young kids. Except for a very brief moment in my
training during what period of time, what years it would
have been, like ninety six to ninety nine.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Right, because I was wondering how much children in the
analytical field are changing and how different they are because
of devices, paths. And my kids are in a private
school because they were in a full language immersion program.
But I didn't have any problem with them going to
public school. In fact, down the street from where we
live in the city is a great public school, but
we wanted to go to this particular school. And I'm
(05:15):
steeped in parents not just in our school but elsewhere where.
They give the kids the meds, even if it's reluctant,
they give them to them early. I mean, these kids
are on ADHD medication when they're you know, seven, eight
years old, and I'm like, I mean that was just
not a part of the landscape when I was a
kid at all.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, No, it's absolutely psychiatric medications have changed things. And
of course, as you alluded to, having phones in their
hands and a really young age really changes things.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
And maybe maybe those two things go together.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Right, they need psychiatric meds because they have so much
of a stimulation from those phones. Some day one we're
starting to see some studies now about how damaging that
can be, especially for younger kids.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Well, I find also that I mean, yes, I would
blame devices maybe, and there's obviously a linkage between devices
in this, but I would also think to myself that
I'm just horrified about how their face is ground into
the news and events and the darkness of the world.
The world is an unsafe place, and they know that
there's no we don't really prioritize making them believe that
(06:17):
they're in a safe world. They walk out into the
world as a young kid, unshielded, you know, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
My version of theirs.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
We moved back to New York in the year two
thousand from Michigan, right, and nine to eleven happened thirteen
months after we got here, and we knew lots of
parents who were like sitting there watching the news with
their kids, you know, their four year olds, their two
year olds watching with them, and we really just kept
it off. We thought, like, they don't need to see
these pictures. They're going to learn about it, they're going
to hear about it. Eventually, they'll see the pictures, but
(06:44):
they don't need to see that.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Now as your wife, you're married.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
I think so, right, I was this morning.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Right right, exactly, that's I'm going to use that. Your wife,
where's she from?
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Originally she's originally from Long Island.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
What town Comack? I know, Comac Rosie o'donald coming.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Yes, yes, actually she knew it was the Donald growing up.
That's funny. Yeah, she's an attorney. Aha.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Now I guess what I come back to, And if
and if you don't want to answer this question, I'm
completely fine. So your father passed when he was you
were six, So you so your father dies and kills himself,
as everybody knows, and then your mother, who was not
as healthy as one might hope. She was an alcoholic.
So you're left with the mother at home. And I'm
(07:26):
even assuming when you were a child, even younger, if
you can recall that, was your father gone all day
in a studio.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Yeah, but he kept kind of bankers hours. I mean
he was gone all day, but he was home in
the evenings for dinner. I mean he really was not
like down at the Cedar dark bar with public and
decoting and all those guys like tanking away all night.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Peter Taffert. Yeah, yeah, but he was around on a
reliable basis. But was your childhood something that might have
propelled you into the first stage of your work.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
You know, I do I do get asked that. The
answer is yes, I don't have any direct experience of that.
You know, I was always a pretty happy kid, and
those you know, years five and six were pretty bad.
They were really difficult, and my parents both both my
parents were not in good shape, but my sister looked
out for me a lot, and my mother, you know,
she was not in good shape, but she was still
very much a functional malfunction.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So I don't know how that launched me on my
current trajectory. But my sense is because I think my
father also looked at the world quite psychologically. My senses
that I got that from him, and it wasn't my
trying to find answers desperately having had this terrible period
in my childhood.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Where'd your dad grow up?
Speaker 3 (08:32):
He well, he was born in what's today Latvia.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I mean, I think he thought of it as Russian Empire,
had been for a couple hundred years, and they moved
to Portland, Oregon when he was ten years old, where
my daughter.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Lost, oh different place in those days.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
When did he come to her?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
So he got a scholarship to Tale when he was eighteen,
and he lasted there a couple of years, lost his scholarship.
They had a very Yale would go back and forth
between welcoming Jews and saying we have too many Yes,
So his scholarship got taken away after his freshman year.
He toughed it out for another year and then he
just left and he went to New York and just
as he put it, bummed around and starved a bit.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
So he went to Yale and studied painting. Was he somebody?
Is that what he studied there? No, not at all.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
He really had no contact with it. I mean some
some exposure to the arts, but no, he hadn't taken
art classes, didn't take any. He was studying economics, in history,
in math at Yale and he came to New York
and he actually got involved in theater. He actually got
involved in theater, but not on a professional level, although
he did do some I think paid summerstock. He told
the story for years and we thought it was just
(09:31):
him bsing, but he said that he had been in
a play and that Clark Gable had been his understudy.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
And isn't it isn't that isn't that funny?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
But in fact, that's the funniest thing I've ever But
in fact we found the program and there he is
listed in the lead role, and Clark Gable is like
well down and apparently was he it was had a
much more minerral but was also my father's understudy.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Kid. No, so it's really chewed out the story.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
My father's story in this we have no way of confirming,
is that Clark Gable only got a part because his
girlfriend was the director. But in any case, so that
but my father had no contact with art until a
friend invited him to the Art Students League to a
drawing class one day, just kind of on to lark.
My father went and he fell in love with it,
and oh my god. But it was largely self taught,
just took a couple of courses there and was largely
(10:18):
self taught and doing this evenings and weekends because he
had to work odd jobs and had he had to
pay the rent, which occasionally he did so, so.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
You guys weren't alive then, No, no, no, no, this
is this is your mother as in the theater.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
No, my mother was an artist too. My mother was
a graphic artist and they got introduced by a mutual friend.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Now, your father goes to the Art Students League. I
find that intriguing because I have a few friends of
mine who passed through there and it was maybe not
where they landed as a career, but they recall it
as one of the most beautiful times of their life
being able to go there. And your dad was how
old when you were born? Almost sixty? Wow, we could
(10:59):
have been great. And he was famous and I low
that word, but he was famous and successful. How long
before you were born? You were born into a roth
go the Rothko that was your father was successful.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yes, yes, but my sister was not. My sister's thirteen
years older than me, and she was born in nineteen fifty.
And that's just the moment he starts getting discovered along
with the other New York artists, new York School artists,
I should say. But you know, even though he got
discovered at that point and he starts having some exhibitions,
he can't support himself just painting until about the time
I'm born shortly before that. So it's you know, it's
still is a long, long, hard slug. And you know
(11:35):
he was born in nineteen oh three, so it's really
he's almost fifty years old before he gets recognition and
almost sixty before he really can just just be an artist.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Now, your father passed away and you were six, so
many years go by before you're doing these installations and
things like that was your entree into that world. That's right,
and you're lighting and installing and so forth. The current
position you hold is what is your title?
Speaker 3 (11:59):
I don't have a title. I'm self employed as i'm
mart those. I'm an occasional curator.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
But you know, for me, it's been the collaboration work
with professionals in the field, with you know, just really
brilliant people who have completely different viewpoints about my father's work.
That's been incredibly satisfying to have those kind of interactions.
It's also given me an opportunity to write a lot.
I went into college thinking I was going to emerge
a writers. Somehow I didn't. But I've written as a
music critic and other things over the years. But this
really got me a chance to be an essays and
(12:27):
I've written now twenty some essays on my father's art
and related topics. And I lecture a good deal too,
which you know, if you'd asked me twenty years ago,
would I enjoy that? I'd tell you no, no, I
really I don't like the public landlight. But in fact
it's been great.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
I see this bibliography of things related to you and
your father. I want to get to the chapel for
a moment, because I mean I live in East Tampton,
Long Island and Amagansett, and the Demon Hills were a
big presence out there. The Demon Hills donated the structures
on their property that was sold. They sold their private
land of fifty eight or so in front acres to
(13:00):
two people. They built two houses on fifty acres, and
the houses are not really compatible because they skin them alive.
I mean, they just all the trees are gone, all
the growth has gone, and you see this soaring or
this looming pathway down to these houses toward the ocean.
But the Demonills sold their property and they took the
structures on the property and donated them and the money
(13:23):
to restore them to become town hall of the town
of Eastampa brother not the village. And I mentioned that
only because you know, I mean, everybody knew the Demonills
out there and so forth. So the chapel, it was
their idea. That's why it's in Houston. How did your
father end up or this thing end up in Houston.
This was after he passed away.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
No, no, well he was alive. No, well before he
passes by. Okay.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
So they had known my father for a number of years.
They were instrumental in getting him one of his early
big shows, which is at the Contemporary Art Museum in
Houston in nineteen fifty seven. They've been collecting his work
for a number of years. And then it was really
Jean Demonil had the idea to make a chapel. They
were deeply, deeply religious people, spiritual Catholics, and they were
collecting a broad range of art, particularly contemporary art, and
(14:05):
he had an idea to create a chapel and a
quiet place for reflection and one that would speak to
the believer or the non believer with a different voice.
So not one that's going to be filled with the
crucifixes and PTRs, but in fact use contemporary art to
engage the seekers. Really, and they thought that that sort
of modern language of art would connect with a modern
(14:26):
generation in a way that older churches were not.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
So they immediately thought about my father.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
They knew about the mural series he'd done for the
Four Seasons restaurant, which he had withdrawn. They thought about
those works, they approached him and he said, no, no, no,
I want to do something from scratch. I want to
do something that's specific to this idea, specific to this place,
and in fact, I want to design the space as well,
says in nineteen sixty four, and he basically put everything
else aside for the next three years to create not
(14:51):
just the paintings, but the whole interior of that space.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
It's really one artwork.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Remind people, by the way, what the Four Seasons restaurant
Brolio was about.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
So he was hired to decorate a private dining room
at the Four Seasons Restaurant by by Philip Johnson, the
famous architect. To my father, it was not a decoration job.
It was he was going to create a temple basically
inside this restaurant. And over courts of a couple of years,
there are different visions for what that was going to
be clashed too much, and my father realized he's never
going to make artwork that anyone's going to look at seriously.
(15:23):
When they're cutting private deals. The wine is flowing, you know,
there's you know, the most expensive food in New York
in front of them.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
They're not going to look at his art work.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
So he eventually withdraws from that from that commission, having
painted like five times more paintings than he needed to
for the commission. But he got completely caught up in
the whole idea. What happen of the pain Did he
destroy them?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
No? No, no, he never destroyed anything. No, never destroy anything.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
From the earliest works from that, we have hundreds of
sheets of you know, sometimes just doodles, but little line
drawings and things. Never destroyed anything, and continued to hang
some of his early work at home. So it's home
was at East ninety sixth Street, or that was the
home I knew. My sister grew up in house kitchen,
and the studio was where well, the last studio again,
which was rented for that chapel commission, because he wanted
(16:05):
to be able to mock up three walls of this
chapel was a carriage house in East sixty ninth Street.
Did d Minills gift him that, well, they rented it
for him and then and then he maintained he took
it over in the three years that he was still painting.
After the commission was done, he took over the rented
that and stayed in that studio because he just found
it such an inspiring space.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Rothcoe Foundation Conservator Christopher Rothcoe. If you enjoyed conversations with
the families of legendary artists, check out my episode with
the children of Leonard Bernstein, Jamie and Alex Bernstein.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
There was this aunt Clara who moved to Florida, and
so she sent all her furniture over to her brother
Sam's house, and along with all the couches and breakfronts,
arrived this upright piano. Our dad was ten years old.
The piano got hauled in to the house, and as
(17:02):
our father told it, he touched the piano and that
was it. He knew it's one of those stories, and
he taught himself theory. He just played the piano.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
He could figure it all out. To hear more of
my conversation with Jamie and Alex Bernstein, go to Here's
the Thing dot org. After the break, Christopher Rothcobe reveals
what his father would have thought of the current price
tag on his paintings and the commodification of art today.
(17:42):
I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the thing. In
March of twenty ten, playwright John Logan's Red made its
Broadway debut after opening in London the year before. Red
tells the story of the Rothcombe Murals that the painter
was commissioned to create for the world famous Four Seasons
restaurant and his ultimate decision to walk away. I wanted
(18:03):
to know what Christopher Rothkoe thought of the depiction of
his father in the show.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
There are a lot of very compelling things about read,
but it's not truly truly a biographical work. The two
things that are not true about his first the assistant,
who is his foil? And all of this is and
he really bullies throughout most of the play. It didn't
really exist. And my father was certainly highly opinionated about art.
It was very passionate at art, and I think it's
great ninety minute play, really about a philosophy of art
(18:30):
and a philosophy of life. But he would not have
I don't think he would have beaten up on his
assistant for an hour and a half.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
He wasn't rude, no, no, he was.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
He was actually quite caring. He was a big, big
hearted man. I think you can see that in the
art work. But you know that said we get together
with his artist buddies and they would certainly debate into
the night. You know, they're different ideas of what's important
artwork and what is the role of the artists, and
you know, and especially when he's younger, a lot of
a lot of political ideas as well.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
So well, I think it's interesting to me that someone
for dramatic effect, obviously they create a character. I mean,
I'm glad to know that.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
I thought there was some guy walking around New York.
They talked him to himself for twenty years after your
father was gone, So damage from that whole relationship. But
the other thing is this idea of money and wealth
and paintings. Your father he hated that the speculative market
and painting which we have, which is Waltwall Now, he
was a really down on that.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
I mean, he was adamant that an artist should be
well paid, that they should be able to support themselves
to their livelihood. He was very pleased when he had
some success, and he he would sometimes self from a
studio and he would you insist on getting what he
felt he should get for his paintings. That said, when
it became a commodity, it really started to bother him.
And if he saw it today, you know, with investment
(19:45):
groups buying his paintings rather than people who love the paintings, oh,
he would be he would be devastated.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
I was often said. I thought that was a term
as to where the painter their estates should be paid
for every transaction of the painting. If you take a
painting and you buy it for four million dollars sold
for twenty million dollars ten years later, you've got to
kick back some.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Big on that to the estate. So there actually is
a term for that.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
As a French chirwan, it's called the delt de suite,
which means you basically, it's the right of what follows.
So in France it's and much of the European unions
it's ten percent. Yeah, and the Artist Right Society, who
works with our estate but many others as well, has
been pushing for years to try and have something similar
in the US. But America is you know, America is
about the art of the deal, right, the businessman who
(20:27):
makes a clever purchase.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
And I don't think we're going to see that for
a while.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Now, one would imagine from a layman's perspective that it's
easier to knock off a wroth Code because it's the
classic frame and two bands of color or three bit
or a box. It's it's his interaction of color. And
I think to myself, it's much easier to knock off
wroth code than these much more complex, detailed, intricate figures.
(20:52):
And then I thought to myself, is it the opposite
within in the modern world, because of all the resources
that are available to do, is how have you dealt
with in your career with this now that you're in charge,
so to speak, knockoffs of your father's paintings.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Well, so I think there there's a certain format that's
familiar and people sort of recognized, oh, that's a Rothco
or it's Rothcoe, like we see them knocked off in
advertisements all the time. But what's hard to do is
create the magic. And you know, there's nowhere to hide
if you make a mistake, there's nowhere for it to hide.
You have to be pretty good to make something really
wonderful happen from those very simple elements. But in fact, yes,
(21:28):
we we and this is not the ory. We this
is my sister and me because we're the co copyright holders.
You know, we've had to deal with this over the years.
We know that my father was really protective of his art.
He really wanted to see only be seen in the
best circumstances and really in situations, particularly museums, where people
could go and appreciate it and really have, you know,
commune with the painting if you will. So the very
you know, the very idea that it's used in advertising,
(21:51):
for example, was something that he would not be happy about.
So you know, when we do see that, we use
our copyright agency. We try to get the ads taken down.
Sometimes it's successful, sometimes it's not, but you know, for
us it's and I really have really learned this from
doing big exhibitions the work. When it works, it's so
much an experience. It's so much that interaction between the
(22:11):
viewer and the painting that we try to limit how
many other ways there are to see the paintings or
things that are.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Like roth Goes. They wanted people to really have that
face to face interaction.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Where's the location around the world, in the US and
in New York Literally, I want to ask all three
that hangs the most of your father's art.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Well, the National Gallery of Art in Washington would they
were the recipients of my father's foundation. That's a complex story,
but let's just leave it at that. And so they
have a dedicated Rothko room on the top floor of
one of the towers of the Impay Building, and they
often have roth Goes dotted elsewhere in their collection. They're
also incredibly generous alone in their works to Rothco exhibitions elsewhere, but.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
They consistently have a room.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
MoMA has for the last five years had a room
up They have I think ten roth Goes on canvas
plus more on paper. And the Metropolitan has also hung
room off and on for the last several years. But
they're major Rothko holdings in Los Angeles at the Houston Houston,
at the Menil Collection. Of course, the Rothko Chapel is
its own artwork, but La Mocha has a fabulous collection
(23:13):
of Rothko's. A Museum of the Artistitute of Chicago has
three major Rothkoes, so they're dotted around this country. And
then the Tate Gallery in London they have a set
of those murals that my father painted for the Four Seasons,
as well as three other wonderful painters.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
And one your father painted for the Four Seasons are
on display at the Tate.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
They have nine of the thirty three, so he put
together the others. He put together a group and gifted
them to the Tates in nineteen seventy because he had
such good interactions with them and with the British public
around his artwork. So they've had that Rothko room basically
on a more or less permanent display for the last
fifty years. And then there's another group in Japan at
the calm War Museum, a group of seven that was
(23:50):
a group that my sister and I put together and
they've created a dedicated room, and the others are at
the National Gallery and a few in private collections.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
What's a book you would recommend which I'm going to
run out the door and go buy it right now,
that shows this field of paintings of your father's. If
I want to see in a book what the Four
Seasons paintings were, what they look like, because I've never
seen them, I don't think. What do you think as
a book? That's a great book in terms of displaying
a sampling of your father's work.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Well, my sister and I put together the most comprehensive
book that's ever ever been done a few years ago.
It's a resolute published it's just a public publishist in
two thousand and twenty three, I believe it was, and
it's a large slipcase volume. It's just called Mark Rothko
and Rizzoli is a publisher, and I think there are
are two hundred and forty works. That's both paintings and
on paper. And then the Rothki Catalog reson of paintings
(24:40):
of just the paintings on canvas. It's over eight hundred
works and that's still in print, and that's a Yale University.
So both of those are going to get you more
enough Rothkie for a lifetime.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Enough bang for the buck there. I think it's interesting
that you say it's a strong presence of this stuff
in Japan. I'm wondering, does your father's work this is
a glib word, but does it play better in certain
parts of the world than others? Absolutely absolutely did the
Japanese love his work. They were early collectors of his work.
There are major paintings in multiple collections around Japan, both
private and public, and they have this Miural Room, and
(25:10):
there's going to be There was a really good show
in ninety six there, and we're going to do another
show in twenty twenty eight. That is not my show,
but working with a dear friend of mine who's a
fabulous curator, Sorommi Hayashi, and she has a fabulous team.
This could be shown at multiple locations around Japan and
twenty twenty eight. Now, you mentioned something about the gestalt
(25:30):
of your father's paintings. You approached it that way. I think,
what did you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (25:35):
You know, it's interesting In the course of doing this
exhibition in Paris that was last year and which had
I think eight hundred and fifty thousand.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Visitors, which was remarkable.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
But I did a lot of tours during that time
and somebody actually pulled me aside at one point we
say and said to me, you know, I noticed you
never get up close to the paintings. You're never like
looking at the details. You're always standing back. And it's true,
and I do that with my father's work. I do
that with other work as well, but especially my father's.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
There are a lot of details.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
There are a lot more details than people would think
in these big, broad, abstract works, but in fact it's
all additive. It's all these different layers of color. There's
a summation and sort of one feeling that you get
from the painting. And so while it's interesting to see
how it's made, I think the idea is to have
a conversation with the painting. Through that painting, have a
(26:21):
conversation with my father about what's important in the world,
what's our common human experience, Where are you at psychologically
right now? And you don't get that from looking at oh,
there's a little hint of white coming out here. You
get that from actually taking in the whole painting. And
it's almost a full body experience it really, it's beyond
just the sensation of looking when I go.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
To museums and I want to look at art, and
of course art for me is as much as paintings,
and on an even keel with paintings is film and photography.
I went to the Prato once because I was there
making a film and I was off this day, and
I realized I couldn't devour it in a day or
a week, but I spent two days and I walked
(27:02):
one section of it, and then I finally get to
what I'm after, which is the Velasquez christ that's at
the Prado, and I finally confronted towards the end of
the second day. It's kind of at the buzzer here
I find the painting and I'm standing there. I mean,
the tears just start rolling down my face.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
I mean, this is my this is my Jesus, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
What I learned at that trip to the Prado in
those two days was you have to drain yourself and
you have to really really do the concentrated relaxation that
is the hallmark of Strasburg's teaching about acting. You must
empty yourself and just be present and just keep your
focus on yourself. And the same I found was seeing
and experiencing painting. I had to go and really really be,
(27:45):
turn my phone off and just to have everything happen.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
You know, when it was there. I get exhausted.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
In museums, like after a couple of hours, it is
draining because if you're really having those intense interactions, it
pulls a lot out of you. That is arguably my
favorite museum in the world, the Proudu, and it just
I'm incredulous.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
My father never saw it. I mean it was it
was all Franco controlled all through his adulthood. And he
never never went.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
And I mean he saw great alpgrad coach in Velascz
in New York, but he never saw the whole suite
that they had at the Prado, along with you know,
the Broigels and the Bosches and the Goyas and the Yeah,
it's pretty, it's.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Pretty incredible place.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Was he much of a traveler, No, hated to travel,
didn't want to leave the studio, so didn't want to
leave the studio, would not fly. So all he went
three trips to Europe, all by boat and almost exclusively
in Italy. So I have an upcoming exhibition, last one
I'm going to do in Fernanzi in Florence. Not so
we've we've this, this show has almost happened. A show
(28:42):
contemporary ardor now for the not in their own, not
in their collection. Occasionally they'll do, you know, comparisons, or
they'll do they'll do discussions between contemporary and older art.
But it's complicated working in Italy because all the museums
are controlled by the municipalities and the government changes, which
it does frequent.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Then your exhibition is paused, discarded, what have you.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
So this is our third go of it, but we're
working with a private foundation this time, so I'm pretty
confident it's going to come off next year or at
a year and a half.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
But that was my father.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
My father was just basically in a lifelong wrestling match
with all those Italian Renaissance artists, loving so much of
what they did, questioning a lot of what they did,
and really just seeing artists who were asking the same
kind of questions that he was, and fascinated by their
attempts to answer them and not always thinking that they
got it right.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
But he loved going.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
I mean, you'd spend eight or ten hours a day
in churches and museums in Italy and just take it
all in and just sort of put himself in their
shoes and look at each of these paintings or altarpieces
or frescoes or whatever it was, and try to imagine
what is he trying to say in that, How is
he trying to achieve it? What am I trying to
do in my own painting that's similar and different?
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Was your father a fan of other painters?
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Absolutely, there were many artists that he just worshiped Turner
primary Rembrandt. Also loved Turner and Rembrandt and Matis for
amongst more modern voices. So Matisa's famous red studio painting,
there's been there was a show at a moment few
years ago. It's now traveled to France. That painting came
to MoMA in the nineteen forties and my father went
there to look at it every single day for six months,
(30:18):
and he was just overwhelmed by the idea that you
could basically take a canvas and just make it just
covered in a color. And yes there are a few
details around the canvas, but you're just overwhelmed by the
redness the red studio Matis Matis. He loved Matis. He
loved both the simplicity but also the boldness to just
say what he wanted to say very directly, and not
(30:39):
to decorate the painting with things that were not necessarily
only put in exactly what he needed.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Was he a fan of any contemporary artists?
Speaker 2 (30:45):
I mean Matisa was contemporary. Matist dies not that long
before my father does, so, I mean he had a
very long life and my father did not. But I
mean he certainly not only looked at, but actually helped
promote some of the work of his contemporaries in the
New York school. Clifford Still, who was a few years
is older, he got him his first show at Peggy
Guggenheim's Art of the Century Gallery and actually curated that
(31:06):
and hung it himself. He I think was more than
respectful of the other artists in that school, but he
didn't hang.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Out with them at Somehowgonquin Roundtable of artists.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Of Continers Well, I mean they had their own little,
more private roundtable that He and Barnett Newman and Af
Gottlieb were particularly a trio, and they wrote little manifestos together.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
But they talked out art a lot, and eventually that
broke down.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
But he was friendly with Franz Klein, he was friendly
with Mother Well, and he certainly knew Paulack and Decooning
well too.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Christopher Rothko, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell a friend
and they sure to follow. Here's the thing on the
iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. When
we come back, Christopher Rothkoe details how the Mark Rothkoe
estate was defrauded after his father's death and who stood
to profit. I'm Alec Baldwin, and this is here's the thing.
(32:13):
Before Christopher Rothko was traveling the world as the ambassador
of his father's legacy, he worked as a clinical psychologist.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
He gave up his practice when he.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Moved to New York and began curating exhibits of his
father's work full time. I was curious if he missed
his previous career and whether he's ever considered returning to
that field of work.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
You know, I missed it when it was at its best.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
I worked at some clinics when I was in Michigan
that were just fabulous places where I could see people
at low feet and I saw a really broad spectrum
of people and could work with them multiple times a
week for extended periods of time. World of the HMO
came into being right around the time I got my degree,
and it really limited how much I could see patients
for how long And they sometimes come to me with
(32:59):
a diagnosis and a medication plan already, and what I
really could do with him was was very limited. So,
you know, there's been a lot of push and pulls
since then. But the freedom I had in those in
those early years. I think she has gone Yeah, I
think it's gone so.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Well that way, which and which you know, someone said
that to me. They said that some doctor I was
saying maybe said to me that it's all changed in
the sense that it's like you know, people lying sitting
in a chair, lying on a couch and talking. Those
days are over because it takes too long. You know,
that takes a long time.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Lock down.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
It costs money, crazily expensive. I mean, insurance won't pay
for that. So either you're charging a lot of money
or you it's hard. You this in New York, But
in other places where maybe your rent's not so high,
you can have a sliding scale, which is what I
was able to do in ann Arbor. I was able
to see people at different levels of fees. But you know,
in New York, you're you're hoping that you cover your
rent after like three weeks of doing therapy.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
What's next for you in terms of the you have
more books in you or do you have more you
wrote a memoir about growing up with.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Your father or no, no, I haven't ridden a memoir.
I've been actually urging my sister, who you knew HI
much better. She was nineteen when he died, so she
knew him much better. So we've been slowly she's she's
written a couple of biographical glass Hayes for catalogs, but
the family has been urging her to write her want
to you know, I think maybe she's slowly coming around.
You know, we both went off into our own professions.
She was a medical doctor, our psychologist or kind of
(34:16):
medicine to ship practice. Well she's retired now, but she
was a pathologist and really and then ended up being
a doctor who was doing blood chemistry. So yeah, so
she Yeah, she never really wanted the limelight. She does
two interviews, but she really wants to keep the focus
on our father.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
We couldn't have done this without your sister as well,
obviously could because you wouldn't be here right now if
the two of you hadn't been doing this on a
collaborative level of maintaining this.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
And one thing we didn't talk about all today, but
you know, the estate was defrauded. You were defrauded. How
this stay?
Speaker 2 (34:45):
So, My father's is one of the first artists foundations,
and it was set up for him by his accountant
slash lawyer, who turns out was also the CFO of
his gallery, and really as soon as my father passed,
before my mother even passed away, they started passing all
the major works from the estate to the gallery for
(35:06):
sale had never yet to Marlborough Gallley, which had never
been never been the understanding they were supposed to. They
were supposed to take the work and place it in museums.
They were supposed to do charitable work on behalf of
older artists who had not had success. And my sister
started catching wind of this. She was nineteen years old
and asked. These were people she'd known for years, the
executors of the estates, And I said, what's going on?
(35:29):
And they were just completely dismissive of her. They just
assumed she was stupid and she would go away. And
the more dismissive they were, the more curious she got.
And she ended up getting a lawyer and it found
and it turns out that they were really defrauding the state.
They were selling them to Marlborough Gallley for next to nothing,
and Marlborough was turning around and selling them for eight
ten times the price. So it was an incredibly long
legal battle. We had very little money to fight it,
(35:50):
and they almost bled us dry. But after years and
years and years of court battle and documents back and forth,
I mean we have filebox after filebox of legal documents,
we actually we actually prevailed, and we prevailed through two appeals,
and we actually got back quite a few paintings and
some financial compensation for the one set that we couldn't
get back.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
But it was really quite miraculous.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
And my sister gave up, I mean really some of
the best years of her life, while somehow she did
this while she was in college and medical school, going
to med school, having got her her first two children.
She somehow managed her to do this. And I am forever.
I'm forever in her dath.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Others hears she will never lord that over me because
she is just a very generous soul. But she is
forever my hero.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Is there a documentary I can recommend when I want
to study a subject, I don't just neecessarily reflexively go
into the documentary boo, because so many of them are
just very tepid and very you know, not that special.
Is there one of your father that you think is
worth people watching to learn more about him?
Speaker 2 (36:45):
There have been a bunch of documentaries I don't know
how many of them are readily available for streaming or
on DVD. But there was one that was done just
for the pandemic called Paintings Must Be Miraculous And it
was done actually by Oregon Public Broadcasting and then got
taken up by the PBS Masters series.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Oh, he was an American Masters. American Masters.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Wow. And yes, and well it's a well done film. Yeah, yeah, no,
it's just about him.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
When can we expect the next major exhibition of your
father's work in New York?
Speaker 3 (37:14):
So we're actually a little overdue for a New York show.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
There's been so much activity around around the world that
we haven't really had a big New York show. There
was a fabulous exhibition of his paintings on paper this
past year that was in Washington, but then it traveled
overseas to Oslo. So we really overdue for a New
York show. And yeah, it's my sister and I've actually
talked to each other. It's time to start talking to
museums and find out what's the right moment, what's the
right location. But yeah, I think before the end of
(37:37):
the decade. It's been since nineteen ninety nine, and what.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
You reveal from people who don't know as much as
I don't know much about this. What you insinuate there
is that the key to these exhibition is you've got
to gather and glean everything together that you want from
around the world. You have to get them to give
you the paintings. Correct.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Absolutely, I mean that was my big job with the
Paris Show. It's one hundred and fifteen works and they
all had to be they all had to be requested
and I mean timed. Yeah, and some of those were,
you know, immediate yeses, and others we went back three
or four times and then sometimes had to redirect. Yet, No,
it's especially you know, these are often large paintings and
very complex to ship, and people and institutions are reluctant
(38:17):
to let them go.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Are you perplexed by the prices that are attached to
your father's work?
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Now, Yeah, I'm perplexed by those prices. I'm perplexed by
a lot of prices in the.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
And so I don't think you can really put a
price on great art. But I'm you know, I think
it's I'm glad that's something that is so valued, because
I think there's a whole lot of garbage out in
the world that people you know, spend crazy amounts of
money for, and you know, the idea of life the
art is it's forever on some level, hopefully it lasts forever,
but certain the feeling behind it is something that is,
(38:49):
you know, reaching back and looking forward, as opposed to
some piece of plastic that it catches your fancy and
you pay some crazy amount of money.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
For what's the highest number of your father's paintings have
ever commanded?
Speaker 2 (39:01):
He has been whispered to me about private sales that
are well in excess of this, but publicly, I think
ninety two million was the highest. Eying, Yeah, it's I mean,
he be scratching his head. I mean, I think after
a certain number well below that, it's kind of monopoly money.
And obviously it's a very limited group of people who
can afford that.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
But hopefully he'd be scratching his head online at the
bank so he can do it head scratching there. Well,
was there anything you learned about your father surprised you
as you immersed yourself more in his work and.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
His over I think the moment of discovery for me
came in two thousand and three, two thousand and four
when I edited his book of philosophical writings. He wrote
actually a relatively young man, before he had any recognition
as an artist, and I see him really churning through ideas,
and I'm trying to get a hold of what he's
(39:49):
trying to say. He doesn't acknowledge at any point in
the book that he's an artist, doesn't have his he
never really sort of takes an eye position as an artist,
doesn't acknowledge.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
That he paints.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
But he's working through all of these questions, all of
these questions, and I realize as I'm editing this book
that not only am I asking myself, as a non artist,
a lot of the same questions. These are questions about painting,
but there are also questions about how we see the world.
I ask myself these same questions. I also realize that
he and I write quite similarly, which actually, to my mind,
(40:20):
gave me license to edit the book because I felt
like I was editing with a similar voice. And in
the end, it was the conversation about art that we
never had. And you know what, I'm not sure even
if he had lived another twenty five years, maybe we
never would have had it either. And this was a
chance to really be sort of inside his head a
little bit and have that talk.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
I mean sometimes it actually stop and say, you know, Dad,
what the hell are you saying?
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Trying to crack a nut that he had really, you know,
it was an unfinished manuscript, so he didn't some flesh
out the ideas sometimes and I had to do my
best tur into it that but it was fabulous because
I felt like it brought me closer to him in
this strange way posthumously, and it was really was really gift.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
You know, when you see paintings that speak to you
this way, that pull you in in this way, you
just want to learn more and more about the artists,
you know. I wanted to learn everything I could about
Caravaggio when I would go to Italy and stay at
the Hostler and go down to the Pope below and
go into the cathedral. They are the little mini cathedral
and there are the two framing side to side Caravaggio
(41:24):
there in front of that, which they had to protect
with some It looks like a not really very sturdy
security system. I mean, somebody could go in there to
throw these people who want to kill art. What do
you think about these people that are throwing buckets of
soup and all kinds of organic matter on paintings and
protesting climate change for example.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Well, I'm all for protesting climate change. I wish they
would find other ways to protest it. I mean, you know,
I think they're targeting artwork because they see these as
icons and trophies. But in fact, the artists who made these,
in almost every case struggled their whole life to try
and get their message across and get it before the public.
So it's I think they choose a very unfortunate target.
And uh, yeah, you know, I am all for making
(42:06):
a lot of noise about climate change. It's it's something
I'm passionate about. But please don't go into a museum
and damage something that belongs to all of us. It's there,
it's there for.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
All of us.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
My thanks to Christopher Rothkoe. This episode was recorded at
CDM Studios in New York City. We're produced by Kathleen Russo,
Zach MacNeice, and Victoria De Martin. Our engineer is Frank Imperial.
Our social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. Here's the thing
is brought to you by iHeart Radio
Host
Alec Baldwin
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