Quote 20080917

For me, the late paintings stand, as much as anything, as a corrective to the earlier work, with its warming yellows and pinks. They remind you that what Rothko most feared and disdained - the idea that his work was regarded as decorative - is too narrow, or at least too easy, a way of seeing him. They are the apotheosis of the existential struggle that lies at the heart of all his work.