Seated Woman with Left Leg Tucked Under and Head Resting on Left Arm 

Mark Rothko created this ink on paper drawing, "Seated Woman with Left Leg Tucked Under and Head Resting on Left Arm," at an unknown date. In the 1930s and 40s, before he became known for his color field paintings, Rothko explored the figure. Here, we see a woman in a state of repose, or perhaps, quiet contemplation. Her form is abstracted, built from bold, gestural strokes. Consider the historical context: Rothko, a Jewish immigrant from Russia, lived through the Great Depression and World War II. These experiences deeply marked him. We might see this drawing as an expression of vulnerability, a quiet moment amidst the turmoil of history. Does the woman's posture suggest a retreat from the world? Or, is there a sense of resilience in her self-contained form? Rothko once said his paintings were "not about the relationships of form and color," but were about "tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on." Perhaps in this early drawing, we see the seeds of these later, profound explorations of human emotion.