Mark Rothko

Markus Rothkowitz arrived at Ellis Island from Latvia in 1913, settled in Portland, then moved to New York in 1923 painting urban scenes. World War II pushed him toward mythological themes and Surrealism to hold tragedy, but by decade's end he'd stripped it all away - pure color regions that became the rectangular forms he'd paint until death. He took three major mural commissions: one for the Four Seasons Restaurant, which he abandoned in disgust and refunded, scattering the Seagram canvases to museums instead; one for Harvard that faded badly from his choice of lithol red and sunlight; and fourteen canvases for the Rothko Chapel in Houston, a non-denominational space where the work still sits. He lived modestly, then died by suicide in 1970. No. 6 (Violet, Green and Red) sold forty-four years later for $186 million.