Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Mark Rothko’s Latvia Hometown Honors Modernist Artist

Modernist painter Mark Rothko’s hometown in Latvia devoted a new centre to the late artist’s work on Wednesday.

The Mark Rothko Arts Centre opened in the eastern town of Daugavpils, the Baltic country’s second biggest city, with six paintings from the private collection of the artist’s daughter and son, who were present at the launch.

The exhibition is the first permanent Rothko installation in eastern Europe.

“This centre, I think, is going to become an important archive, an important resource for Rothko scholars to draw on, and also for Rothko’s public,” son Christopher Rothko told a news conference.

Rothko was born in 1903 in Daugavpils, when Latvia was part of the Russian Empire and the town was known as Dvinsk.

His parents emigrated to the United states when he was 10 and he later became one of the greatest American artists of the 20th century. He killed himself in 1970.

The new centre is located in the historic premises of Daugavpils fortress. The centre was mainly funded with European Union funds.

Auction house Christie’s said on its website that its Rothko sale in May 2012 was a world auction record for any contemporary work of art.

The Mark Rothko Arts Centre opened in the eastern town of Daugavpils, the Baltic country’s second biggest city, with six paintings from the private collection of the artist’s daughter and son, who were present at the launch.

The exhibition is the first permanent Rothko installation in eastern Europe.

“This centre, I think, is going to become an important archive, an important resource for Rothko scholars to draw on, and also for Rothko’s public,” son Christopher Rothko told a news conference.

Rothko was born in 1903 in Daugavpils, when Latvia was part of the Russian Empire and the town was known as Dvinsk.

His parents emigrated to the United states when he was 10 and he later became one of the greatest American artists of the 20th century. He killed himself in 1970.

The new centre is located in the historic premises of Daugavpils fortress. The centre was mainly funded with European Union funds.

Auction house Christie’s said on its website that its Rothko sale in May 2012 was a world auction record for any contemporary work of art.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.