Woman Reading, Right Hand Covering Mouth 

Mark Rothko made this drawing called 'Woman Reading, Right Hand Covering Mouth' with graphite on paper. The image is suggestive of the sitter's quiet absorption in her reading. Rothko made this drawing in the United States where the rise of literacy and the wider availability of printed material transformed the relationship between readers and the written word. In the drawing, the figure’s face is partially hidden and the hand shields her mouth. Is she stifling a laugh? Is she contemplating what she is reading? It's hard to say, but the drawing perhaps speaks to the privacy and interiority of reading. We might compare this to a formal portrait commissioned by a wealthy patron which says something about the sitter's public role and status. In contrast, the image here evokes the quiet intimacy of a woman in the act of reading. To learn more, one might look at archives, letters, diaries, and library records to understand the growth of literacy and the changing status of readers in the twentieth century.