No. 61 (Rust and Blue)

Mark Rothko stacked luminous rectangles of rust red and deep blue on this nearly 10-foot canvas. The colors seem to float and breathe, their edges softly blurred where they meet. Rothko wanted viewers to stand close, letting the painting envelope their field of vision.

Rothko rejected the label "abstract" for his work, insisting he painted emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom. The scale forces an intimate encounter with these feelings. The rust and blue create a dialogue of warm and cool, tension and release. Rothko specified that his paintings be hung low and viewed in dim light.

It hangs at the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.