Oil on canvas
Slow Swirl at the Edge of the Sea pictures two creatures dancing between sea and sky, surrounded by arabesques, spirals, and stripes. The forms “have no direct association with any particular visible experience, but in them one recognizes the principle and passion of organisms,” Rothko said. For him art was “an adventure into an unknown world”; like the Surrealists he encountered in New York during this period, Rothko looked inward, to his own unconscious mind, for inspiration and material for his work. This painting was exhibited at Art of This Century in 1945, after which Peggy Guggenheim acquired it for her personal collection.
522: Art of This Century, 2025
Kids label from 2019
Mark Rothko called this painting Slow Swirl at the Edge of the Sea. Do you see anything in this painting that reminds of you of the seaside? Rothko painted this scene from his imagination because, for him, art was “an adventure into an unknown world.” If you were going to make a picture of an imaginary world, what would you include?
Gallery label from Abstract Expressionist New York , October 3, 2010–April 25, 2011
Slow Swirl at the Edge of the Sea pictures two creatures dancing between sea and sky, surrounded by arabesques, spirals, and stripes. The forms “have no direct association with any particular visible experience, but in them one recognizes the principle and passion of organisms,” Rothko said. For him art was “an adventure into an unknown world”; like the Surrealists before him, Rothko looked inward, to his own unconscious mind, for inspiration and material for his work.
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Mark Rothko
American, born Russia (now Latvia). 1903–1970 19 works onlineMark Rothko sought to make paintings that would bring people to tears.If you…are moved only by their color relationships, then you miss the point.
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Art of This Century
Gallery 522In the 1940s the New York City art world expanded with the arrival of European émigrés escaping World War II.
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