Lake George

During July 1932 Rothko camped at Hearthstone Point near the southern end of Lake George, New York. It was on this trip that he met Edith Sachar (1912–1981), whom he would marry in November of that year. Edith later remembered that during the fall of 1932 Rothko had taken watercolors made at Lake George in July “around to some of the galleries and he hadn’t gotten any reaction. Nobody wanted to show them. I don’t think they were presented very well, he didn’t have the money, you know, to set them up. And some of them I think were very good. And I think he was disappointed. He had great faith in his watercolors.” [Edith (Sachar) Carson, interviewed by Walter Hopps, October 19, 1976, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.] An inscription on this watercolor’s original mat (since removed) read, “M Rothkowitz Lake George $10,” suggesting that this may have been one of the watercolors Rothko showed to dealers in the fall of 1932. This work shows little evidence of light exposure when examined under ultraviolet light, suggesting that, despite being signed and having once been matted matted, it may not have been exhibited.