[Untitled]

1986.56.521
Date
1941/1942
Medium
Watercolor
Support
Wove paper
Dimensions
9 x 12 in. (22.7 x 30.5 cm)
Estate/Inventory Number
N 16
Collection
National Gallery of Art, Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc., 1986.56.521. © Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko
Provenance
Related Works on Paper
[Head of a woman, three studies]

[Head of a woman, three studies]

1941/1942

1986.56.504.b
[Head of a woman, two studies]

[Head of a woman, two studies]

1941/1942

1986.56.504.a
[Bust of a woman, two studies]

[Bust of a woman, two studies]

1941/1942

1986.56.501.a
Remarks
This watercolor relates to an oil painting, Heads (fig. 1). Rothko made a small series of studies of women (see Related Works on Paper), all with a hairstyle popular in the 1940s in the United States and Britain known as a victory roll, a moniker alluding to the aerial maneuvers of World War II warplanes and to Allied war support efforts in general. Rothko appears to have relied on these studies as sources for the current watercolor and the related oil painting.
[Untitled]
1. Mark Rothko, Heads, 1941/1942, oil on canvas, 20 x 28 in., The Estate of Edith Carson, © Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko. [Anfam 186]
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