Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from My Heart Radio. My guest today has a
Speaker 1: PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Michigan, but
Speaker 1: hasn't practiced in over twenty years. As is often the case,
Speaker 1: life had other plans for Christopher Rothcoe. Today he is
Speaker 1: the driving force behind preserving the work and legacy of
Speaker 1: his father, painter Mark Rothko. Christopher Rothko, along with his
Speaker 1: sister Kate, are the copyright holders to their father's work
Speaker 1: and oversee exhibitions of Mark Rothko's paintings all over the world.
Speaker 1: It's a job Taylor made for the Rothkoe family, but
Speaker 1: it was not the path that Christopher Rothko saw for
Speaker 1: himself until later in life.
Speaker 2: My intention was to live my own life and independent
Speaker 2: of the artwork, not by any means arm's length. But
Speaker 2: I had some administrative duties, but it was my intention
Speaker 2: to have my own career and that was something to
Speaker 2: be very much apart from them.
Speaker 1: The artworks in clinical psychology.
Speaker 2: In clinical psychology, before that, I was going to be
Speaker 2: a musicologist. I kept trying on different hats and then
Speaker 2: in the end the Rothco had is the one that fit,
Speaker 2: and it kind of snuck up on me. I don't
Speaker 2: think I would have done this if I didn't have
Speaker 2: my own practice and hadn't gotten my degree. I'd gone
Speaker 2: out there, I'd done what I intended to do, and
Speaker 2: then I found that the artwork appealed more.
Speaker 3: And that's okay.
Speaker 1: Was there a moment, Was there a clarifying moment for
Speaker 1: you where all of a suddenly you were said, I'm
Speaker 1: going to go do this now?
Speaker 2: No, I think it was cumulative. But there were a
Speaker 2: series of exhibitions happening, mostly in Europe in the late
Speaker 2: nineties and early two thousands, and typically done by younger
Speaker 2: curators who hadn't worked with my father's work before. And
Speaker 2: my phone just kept bringing and they had questions for me,
Speaker 2: and to my surprise, I actually knew the answers to
Speaker 2: the questions and answer to the question. And they invited
Speaker 2: me to help light and hang the works, which again
Speaker 2: I found that I had more to contribute than I realized,
Speaker 2: and I really enjoyed it, and I felt like I
Speaker 2: had a kind of a knack for it, and I
Speaker 2: really just voted with my feet. I kept taking on
Speaker 2: more and more of those projects, and I stopped taking
Speaker 2: on new patients and eventually especially involved with a move
Speaker 2: back to New York City where I was going to
Speaker 2: have to get relicensed and there was could be a
Speaker 2: real process to rebuilding my practice. It just made a
Speaker 2: lot of sense to do Rothko. But if there hadn't
Speaker 2: been the passion there, I wouldn't have done it. I
Speaker 2: would have proceeded with the psychology.
Speaker 1: Now, talk about your psychology career. When your father was
Speaker 1: gone and then your mother was gone months later.
Speaker 3: Correct, that's right. You were raised and ann Arbor. Correct.
Speaker 2: No, in actually Columbus, Ohio, the enemy territory for people
Speaker 2: from at Harbor. My mother's sister lived in Columbus, and
Speaker 2: I lived with her and her husband during elementary school
Speaker 2: and into junior high.
Speaker 1: And what was it in your background that invited you
Speaker 1: to study clinical psychology?
Speaker 2: You know, it's I just found that always the way
Speaker 2: that I looked at the world. I was a literature
Speaker 2: major in college. I always was fascinated with deeply psychological literature.
Speaker 3: I wrote a.
Speaker 2: Huge paper on Moby Dick and another one on a
Speaker 2: couple of different Doscasci novels. And I've always been fascinated
Speaker 2: by how people tick and what are motivations? Are the
Speaker 2: ones that we maybe aren't so conscious of until they
Speaker 2: sort of keep up on us and bite us in
Speaker 2: the ass.
Speaker 1: And where did you go undergrad?
Speaker 2: I was a Yale undergraduate and then at Michigan, if
Speaker 2: that's the anobrapy s.
Speaker 3: I was at Michigan or graduate school.
Speaker 1: For graduate school in clinical psychology.
Speaker 3: And that's right right.
Speaker 1: I only asked people where they went to college, not
Speaker 1: with an eye toward prestige, but more toward climate. You know,
Speaker 1: when I learned the number of people that went to
Speaker 1: Bennington College, I'm like, oh my god, they all went
Speaker 1: up there and froze to deaf. So you studied clinical
Speaker 1: psychology and to the best of your ability, without you know,
Speaker 1: violating anything. What kind of work did you do, Like
Speaker 1: you saw patients, your your patients, you interacted with them
Speaker 1: on a whole breadth of topics and problems and so forth.
Speaker 1: Or did you focus on.
Speaker 2: Something well, well, yes, and especially when you're first starting out,
Speaker 2: you can't be so selective about what you do if
Speaker 2: you want to have patients. So the distinction you're making
Speaker 2: between psychiatrists who can prescribe in psychologists who who don't
Speaker 2: of course, the insurance companies like the psychiatrists a lot
Speaker 2: more because it's you know, it's expensive. Those medications are
Speaker 2: there still cheaper than paying for an hour our psychotherapy.
Speaker 2: Psychologists have actually gotten a little bit of the squeeze
Speaker 2: over the last few decades because of that. But yes,
Speaker 2: I did a full range, always adult, an adolescent. I'd
Speaker 2: done a training with adolescents and what's called a day hospital,
Speaker 2: a partial hospitalization program, and I found if you work
Speaker 2: with adolescents you get a lot of referrals because adolescents
Speaker 2: are tough. It's really rewarding because they are still so
Speaker 2: capable of making change and everything is so raw. But
Speaker 2: you know, most of them don't want to talk to
Speaker 2: you know. I was, I think twenty eight years old
Speaker 2: when I saw my first adolescent, and the first thing
Speaker 2: they said was could I see somebody younger? So, you know,
Speaker 2: if you're the other and they're not there because they
Speaker 2: wanted to be there, there because somebody made them go.
Speaker 1: So you eventually wound up working with a lot of kids.
Speaker 3: I did.
Speaker 2: I ended up working with a lot of adolescents, never
Speaker 2: young kids. Except for a very brief moment in my
Speaker 2: training during what period of time, what years it would
Speaker 2: have been, like ninety six to ninety nine.
Speaker 1: Right, because I was wondering how much children in the
Speaker 1: analytical field are changing and how different they are because
Speaker 1: of devices, paths. And my kids are in a private
Speaker 1: school because they were in a full language immersion program.
Speaker 1: But I didn't have any problem with them going to
Speaker 1: public school. In fact, down the street from where we
Speaker 1: live in the city is a great public school, but
Speaker 1: we wanted to go to this particular school. And I'm
Speaker 1: steeped in parents not just in our school but elsewhere where.
Speaker 1: They give the kids the meds, even if it's reluctant,
Speaker 1: they give them to them early. I mean, these kids
Speaker 1: are on ADHD medication when they're you know, seven, eight
Speaker 1: years old, and I'm like, I mean that was just
Speaker 1: not a part of the landscape when I was a
Speaker 1: kid at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it's absolutely psychiatric medications have changed things. And
Speaker 2: of course, as you alluded to, having phones in their
Speaker 2: hands and a really young age really changes things.
Speaker 3: And maybe maybe those two things go together.
Speaker 2: Right, they need psychiatric meds because they have so much
Speaker 2: of a stimulation from those phones. Some day one we're
Speaker 2: starting to see some studies now about how damaging that
Speaker 2: can be, especially for younger kids.
Speaker 1: Well, I find also that I mean, yes, I would
Speaker 1: blame devices maybe, and there's obviously a linkage between devices
Speaker 1: in this, but I would also think to myself that
Speaker 1: I'm just horrified about how their face is ground into
Speaker 1: the news and events and the darkness of the world.
Speaker 1: The world is an unsafe place, and they know that
Speaker 1: there's no we don't really prioritize making them believe that
Speaker 1: they're in a safe world. They walk out into the
Speaker 1: world as a young kid, unshielded, you know, Yeah.
Speaker 3: My version of theirs.
Speaker 2: We moved back to New York in the year two
Speaker 2: thousand from Michigan, right, and nine to eleven happened thirteen
Speaker 2: months after we got here, and we knew lots of
Speaker 2: parents who were like sitting there watching the news with
Speaker 2: their kids, you know, their four year olds, their two
Speaker 2: year olds watching with them, and we really just kept
Speaker 2: it off. We thought, like, they don't need to see
Speaker 2: these pictures. They're going to learn about it, they're going
Speaker 2: to hear about it. Eventually, they'll see the pictures, but
Speaker 2: they don't need to see that.
Speaker 1: Now as your wife, you're married.
Speaker 3: I think so, right, I was this morning.
Speaker 1: Right right, exactly, that's I'm going to use that. Your wife,
Speaker 1: where's she from?
Speaker 3: Originally she's originally from Long Island.
Speaker 1: What town Comack? I know, Comac Rosie o'donald coming.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, actually she knew it was the Donald growing up.
Speaker 3: That's funny. Yeah, she's an attorney. Aha.
Speaker 1: Now I guess what I come back to, And if
Speaker 1: and if you don't want to answer this question, I'm
Speaker 1: completely fine. So your father passed when he was you
Speaker 1: were six, So you so your father dies and kills himself,
Speaker 1: as everybody knows, and then your mother, who was not
Speaker 1: as healthy as one might hope. She was an alcoholic.
Speaker 1: So you're left with the mother at home. And I'm
Speaker 1: even assuming when you were a child, even younger, if
Speaker 1: you can recall that, was your father gone all day
Speaker 1: in a studio.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he kept kind of bankers hours. I mean
Speaker 2: he was gone all day, but he was home in
Speaker 2: the evenings for dinner. I mean he really was not
Speaker 2: like down at the Cedar dark bar with public and
Speaker 2: decoting and all those guys like tanking away all night.
Speaker 1: Peter Taffert. Yeah, yeah, but he was around on a
Speaker 1: reliable basis. But was your childhood something that might have
Speaker 1: propelled you into the first stage of your work.
Speaker 2: You know, I do I do get asked that. The
Speaker 2: answer is yes, I don't have any direct experience of that.
Speaker 2: You know, I was always a pretty happy kid, and
Speaker 2: those you know, years five and six were pretty bad.
Speaker 2: They were really difficult, and my parents both both my
Speaker 2: parents were not in good shape, but my sister looked
Speaker 2: out for me a lot, and my mother, you know,
Speaker 2: she was not in good shape, but she was still
Speaker 2: very much a functional malfunction.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I don't know how that launched me on my
Speaker 2: current trajectory. But my sense is because I think my
Speaker 2: father also looked at the world quite psychologically. My senses
Speaker 2: that I got that from him, and it wasn't my
Speaker 2: trying to find answers desperately having had this terrible period
Speaker 2: in my childhood.
Speaker 1: Where'd your dad grow up?
Speaker 3: He well, he was born in what's today Latvia.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think he thought of it as Russian Empire,
Speaker 2: had been for a couple hundred years, and they moved
Speaker 2: to Portland, Oregon when he was ten years old, where
Speaker 2: my daughter.
Speaker 3: Lost, oh different place in those days.
Speaker 1: When did he come to her?
Speaker 2: So he got a scholarship to Tale when he was eighteen,
Speaker 2: and he lasted there a couple of years, lost his scholarship.
Speaker 2: They had a very Yale would go back and forth
Speaker 2: between welcoming Jews and saying we have too many Yes,
Speaker 2: So his scholarship got taken away after his freshman year.
Speaker 2: He toughed it out for another year and then he
Speaker 2: just left and he went to New York and just
Speaker 2: as he put it, bummed around and starved a bit.
Speaker 1: So he went to Yale and studied painting. Was he somebody?
Speaker 1: Is that what he studied there? No, not at all.
Speaker 2: He really had no contact with it. I mean some
Speaker 2: some exposure to the arts, but no, he hadn't taken
Speaker 2: art classes, didn't take any. He was studying economics, in history,
Speaker 2: in math at Yale and he came to New York
Speaker 2: and he actually got involved in theater. He actually got
Speaker 2: involved in theater, but not on a professional level, although
Speaker 2: he did do some I think paid summerstock. He told
Speaker 2: the story for years and we thought it was just
Speaker 2: him bsing, but he said that he had been in
Speaker 2: a play and that Clark Gable had been his understudy.
Speaker 3: And isn't it isn't that isn't that funny?
Speaker 2: But in fact, that's the funniest thing I've ever But
Speaker 2: in fact we found the program and there he is
Speaker 2: listed in the lead role, and Clark Gable is like
Speaker 2: well down and apparently was he it was had a
Speaker 2: much more minerral but was also my father's understudy.
Speaker 3: Kid. No, so it's really chewed out the story.
Speaker 2: My father's story in this we have no way of confirming,
Speaker 2: is that Clark Gable only got a part because his
Speaker 2: girlfriend was the director. But in any case, so that
Speaker 2: but my father had no contact with art until a
Speaker 2: friend invited him to the Art Students League to a
Speaker 2: drawing class one day, just kind of on to lark.
Speaker 2: My father went and he fell in love with it,
Speaker 2: and oh my god. But it was largely self taught,
Speaker 2: just took a couple of courses there and was largely
Speaker 2: self taught and doing this evenings and weekends because he
Speaker 2: had to work odd jobs and had he had to
Speaker 2: pay the rent, which occasionally he did so, so.
Speaker 3: You guys weren't alive then, No, no, no, no, this
Speaker 3: is this is your mother as in the theater.
Speaker 2: No, my mother was an artist too. My mother was
Speaker 2: a graphic artist and they got introduced by a mutual friend.
Speaker 1: Now, your father goes to the Art Students League. I
Speaker 1: find that intriguing because I have a few friends of
Speaker 1: mine who passed through there and it was maybe not
Speaker 1: where they landed as a career, but they recall it
Speaker 1: as one of the most beautiful times of their life
Speaker 1: being able to go there. And your dad was how
Speaker 1: old when you were born? Almost sixty? Wow, we could
Speaker 1: have been great. And he was famous and I low
Speaker 1: that word, but he was famous and successful. How long
Speaker 1: before you were born? You were born into a roth
Speaker 1: go the Rothko that was your father was successful.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, but my sister was not. My sister's thirteen
Speaker 2: years older than me, and she was born in nineteen fifty.
Speaker 2: And that's just the moment he starts getting discovered along
Speaker 2: with the other New York artists, new York School artists,
Speaker 2: I should say. But you know, even though he got
Speaker 2: discovered at that point and he starts having some exhibitions,
Speaker 2: he can't support himself just painting until about the time
Speaker 2: I'm born shortly before that. So it's you know, it's
Speaker 2: still is a long, long, hard slug. And you know
Speaker 2: he was born in nineteen oh three, so it's really
Speaker 2: he's almost fifty years old before he gets recognition and
Speaker 2: almost sixty before he really can just just be an artist.
Speaker 1: Now, your father passed away and you were six, so
Speaker 1: many years go by before you're doing these installations and
Speaker 1: things like that was your entree into that world. That's right,
Speaker 1: and you're lighting and installing and so forth. The current
Speaker 1: position you hold is what is your title?
Speaker 3: I don't have a title. I'm self employed as i'm
Speaker 3: mart those. I'm an occasional curator.
Speaker 2: But you know, for me, it's been the collaboration work
Speaker 2: with professionals in the field, with you know, just really
Speaker 2: brilliant people who have completely different viewpoints about my father's work.
Speaker 2: That's been incredibly satisfying to have those kind of interactions.
Speaker 2: It's also given me an opportunity to write a lot.
Speaker 2: I went into college thinking I was going to emerge
Speaker 2: a writers. Somehow I didn't. But I've written as a
Speaker 2: music critic and other things over the years. But this
Speaker 2: really got me a chance to be an essays and
Speaker 2: I've written now twenty some essays on my father's art
Speaker 2: and related topics. And I lecture a good deal too,
Speaker 2: which you know, if you'd asked me twenty years ago,
Speaker 2: would I enjoy that? I'd tell you no, no, I
Speaker 2: really I don't like the public landlight. But in fact
Speaker 2: it's been great.
Speaker 1: I see this bibliography of things related to you and
Speaker 1: your father. I want to get to the chapel for
Speaker 1: a moment, because I mean I live in East Tampton,
Speaker 1: Long Island and Amagansett, and the Demon Hills were a
Speaker 1: big presence out there. The Demon Hills donated the structures
Speaker 1: on their property that was sold. They sold their private
Speaker 1: land of fifty eight or so in front acres to
Speaker 1: two people. They built two houses on fifty acres, and
Speaker 1: the houses are not really compatible because they skin them alive.
Speaker 1: I mean, they just all the trees are gone, all
Speaker 1: the growth has gone, and you see this soaring or
Speaker 1: this looming pathway down to these houses toward the ocean.
Speaker 1: But the Demonills sold their property and they took the
Speaker 1: structures on the property and donated them and the money
Speaker 1: to restore them to become town hall of the town
Speaker 1: of Eastampa brother not the village. And I mentioned that
Speaker 1: only because you know, I mean, everybody knew the Demonills
Speaker 1: out there and so forth. So the chapel, it was
Speaker 1: their idea. That's why it's in Houston. How did your
Speaker 1: father end up or this thing end up in Houston.
Speaker 1: This was after he passed away.
Speaker 3: No, no, well he was alive. No, well before he
Speaker 3: passes by. Okay.
Speaker 2: So they had known my father for a number of years.
Speaker 2: They were instrumental in getting him one of his early
Speaker 2: big shows, which is at the Contemporary Art Museum in
Speaker 2: Houston in nineteen fifty seven. They've been collecting his work
Speaker 2: for a number of years. And then it was really
Speaker 2: Jean Demonil had the idea to make a chapel. They
Speaker 2: were deeply, deeply religious people, spiritual Catholics, and they were
Speaker 2: collecting a broad range of art, particularly contemporary art, and
Speaker 2: he had an idea to create a chapel and a
Speaker 2: quiet place for reflection and one that would speak to
Speaker 2: the believer or the non believer with a different voice.
Speaker 2: So not one that's going to be filled with the
Speaker 2: crucifixes and PTRs, but in fact use contemporary art to
Speaker 2: engage the seekers. Really, and they thought that that sort
Speaker 2: of modern language of art would connect with a modern
Speaker 2: generation in a way that older churches were not.
Speaker 3: So they immediately thought about my father.
Speaker 2: They knew about the mural series he'd done for the
Speaker 2: Four Seasons restaurant, which he had withdrawn. They thought about
Speaker 2: those works, they approached him and he said, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: I want to do something from scratch. I want to
Speaker 2: do something that's specific to this idea, specific to this place,
Speaker 2: and in fact, I want to design the space as well,
Speaker 2: says in nineteen sixty four, and he basically put everything
Speaker 2: else aside for the next three years to create not
Speaker 2: just the paintings, but the whole interior of that space.
Speaker 3: It's really one artwork.
Speaker 1: Remind people, by the way, what the Four Seasons restaurant
Speaker 1: Brolio was about.
Speaker 2: So he was hired to decorate a private dining room
Speaker 2: at the Four Seasons Restaurant by by Philip Johnson, the
Speaker 2: famous architect. To my father, it was not a decoration job.
Speaker 2: It was he was going to create a temple basically
Speaker 2: inside this restaurant. And over courts of a couple of years,
Speaker 2: there are different visions for what that was going to
Speaker 2: be clashed too much, and my father realized he's never
Speaker 2: going to make artwork that anyone's going to look at seriously.
Speaker 2: When they're cutting private deals. The wine is flowing, you know,
Speaker 2: there's you know, the most expensive food in New York
Speaker 2: in front of them.
Speaker 3: They're not going to look at his art work.
Speaker 2: So he eventually withdraws from that from that commission, having
Speaker 2: painted like five times more paintings than he needed to
Speaker 2: for the commission. But he got completely caught up in
Speaker 2: the whole idea. What happen of the pain Did he
Speaker 2: destroy them?
Speaker 3: No? No, no, he never destroyed anything. No, never destroy anything.
Speaker 2: From the earliest works from that, we have hundreds of
Speaker 2: sheets of you know, sometimes just doodles, but little line
Speaker 2: drawings and things. Never destroyed anything, and continued to hang
Speaker 2: some of his early work at home. So it's home
Speaker 2: was at East ninety sixth Street, or that was the
Speaker 2: home I knew. My sister grew up in house kitchen,
Speaker 2: and the studio was where well, the last studio again,
Speaker 2: which was rented for that chapel commission, because he wanted
Speaker 2: to be able to mock up three walls of this
Speaker 2: chapel was a carriage house in East sixty ninth Street.
Speaker 2: Did d Minills gift him that, well, they rented it
Speaker 2: for him and then and then he maintained he took
Speaker 2: it over in the three years that he was still painting.
Speaker 2: After the commission was done, he took over the rented
Speaker 2: that and stayed in that studio because he just found
Speaker 2: it such an inspiring space.
Speaker 1: Rothcoe Foundation Conservator Christopher Rothcoe. If you enjoyed conversations with
Speaker 1: the families of legendary artists, check out my episode with
Speaker 1: the children of Leonard Bernstein, Jamie and Alex Bernstein.
Speaker 4: There was this aunt Clara who moved to Florida, and
Speaker 4: so she sent all her furniture over to her brother
Speaker 4: Sam's house, and along with all the couches and breakfronts,
Speaker 4: arrived this upright piano. Our dad was ten years old.
Speaker 4: The piano got hauled in to the house, and as
Speaker 4: our father told it, he touched the piano and that
Speaker 4: was it. He knew it's one of those stories, and
Speaker 4: he taught himself theory. He just played the piano.
Speaker 1: He could figure it all out. To hear more of
Speaker 1: my conversation with Jamie and Alex Bernstein, go to Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing dot org. After the break, Christopher Rothcobe reveals
Speaker 1: what his father would have thought of the current price
Speaker 1: tag on his paintings and the commodification of art today.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the thing. In
Speaker 1: March of twenty ten, playwright John Logan's Red made its
Speaker 1: Broadway debut after opening in London the year before. Red
Speaker 1: tells the story of the Rothcombe Murals that the painter
Speaker 1: was commissioned to create for the world famous Four Seasons
Speaker 1: restaurant and his ultimate decision to walk away. I wanted
Speaker 1: to know what Christopher Rothkoe thought of the depiction of
Speaker 1: his father in the show.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of very compelling things about read,
Speaker 2: but it's not truly truly a biographical work. The two
Speaker 2: things that are not true about his first the assistant,
Speaker 2: who is his foil? And all of this is and
Speaker 2: he really bullies throughout most of the play. It didn't
Speaker 2: really exist. And my father was certainly highly opinionated about art.
Speaker 2: It was very passionate at art, and I think it's
Speaker 2: great ninety minute play, really about a philosophy of art
Speaker 2: and a philosophy of life. But he would not have
Speaker 2: I don't think he would have beaten up on his
Speaker 2: assistant for an hour and a half.
Speaker 3: He wasn't rude, no, no, he was.
Speaker 2: He was actually quite caring. He was a big, big
Speaker 2: hearted man. I think you can see that in the
Speaker 2: art work. But you know that said we get together
Speaker 2: with his artist buddies and they would certainly debate into
Speaker 2: the night. You know, they're different ideas of what's important
Speaker 2: artwork and what is the role of the artists, and
Speaker 2: you know, and especially when he's younger, a lot of
Speaker 2: a lot of political ideas as well.
Speaker 1: So well, I think it's interesting to me that someone
Speaker 1: for dramatic effect, obviously they create a character. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm glad to know that.
Speaker 3: I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: I thought there was some guy walking around New York.
Speaker 1: They talked him to himself for twenty years after your
Speaker 1: father was gone, So damage from that whole relationship. But
Speaker 1: the other thing is this idea of money and wealth
Speaker 1: and paintings. Your father he hated that the speculative market
Speaker 1: and painting which we have, which is Waltwall Now, he
Speaker 1: was a really down on that.
Speaker 2: I mean, he was adamant that an artist should be
Speaker 2: well paid, that they should be able to support themselves
Speaker 2: to their livelihood. He was very pleased when he had
Speaker 2: some success, and he he would sometimes self from a
Speaker 2: studio and he would you insist on getting what he
Speaker 2: felt he should get for his paintings. That said, when
Speaker 2: it became a commodity, it really started to bother him.
Speaker 2: And if he saw it today, you know, with investment
Speaker 2: groups buying his paintings rather than people who love the paintings, oh,
Speaker 2: he would be he would be devastated.
Speaker 1: I was often said. I thought that was a term
Speaker 1: as to where the painter their estates should be paid
Speaker 1: for every transaction of the painting. If you take a
Speaker 1: painting and you buy it for four million dollars sold
Speaker 1: for twenty million dollars ten years later, you've got to
Speaker 1: kick back some.
Speaker 3: Big on that to the estate. So there actually is
Speaker 3: a term for that.
Speaker 2: As a French chirwan, it's called the delt de suite,
Speaker 2: which means you basically, it's the right of what follows.
Speaker 2: So in France it's and much of the European unions
Speaker 2: it's ten percent. Yeah, and the Artist Right Society, who
Speaker 2: works with our estate but many others as well, has
Speaker 2: been pushing for years to try and have something similar
Speaker 2: in the US. But America is you know, America is
Speaker 2: about the art of the deal, right, the businessman who
Speaker 2: makes a clever purchase.
Speaker 3: And I don't think we're going to see that for
Speaker 3: a while.
Speaker 1: Now, one would imagine from a layman's perspective that it's
Speaker 1: easier to knock off a wroth Code because it's the
Speaker 1: classic frame and two bands of color or three bit
Speaker 1: or a box. It's it's his interaction of color. And
Speaker 1: I think to myself, it's much easier to knock off
Speaker 1: wroth code than these much more complex, detailed, intricate figures.
Speaker 1: And then I thought to myself, is it the opposite
Speaker 1: within in the modern world, because of all the resources
Speaker 1: that are available to do, is how have you dealt
Speaker 1: with in your career with this now that you're in charge,
Speaker 1: so to speak, knockoffs of your father's paintings.
Speaker 2: Well, so I think there there's a certain format that's
Speaker 2: familiar and people sort of recognized, oh, that's a Rothco
Speaker 2: or it's Rothcoe, like we see them knocked off in
Speaker 2: advertisements all the time. But what's hard to do is
Speaker 2: create the magic. And you know, there's nowhere to hide
Speaker 2: if you make a mistake, there's nowhere for it to hide.
Speaker 2: You have to be pretty good to make something really
Speaker 2: wonderful happen from those very simple elements. But in fact, yes,
Speaker 2: we we and this is not the ory. We this
Speaker 2: is my sister and me because we're the co copyright holders.
Speaker 2: You know, we've had to deal with this over the years.
Speaker 2: We know that my father was really protective of his art.
Speaker 2: He really wanted to see only be seen in the
Speaker 2: best circumstances and really in situations, particularly museums, where people
Speaker 2: could go and appreciate it and really have, you know,
Speaker 2: commune with the painting if you will. So the very
Speaker 2: you know, the very idea that it's used in advertising,
Speaker 2: for example, was something that he would not be happy about.
Speaker 2: So you know, when we do see that, we use
Speaker 2: our copyright agency. We try to get the ads taken down.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's successful, sometimes it's not, but you know, for
Speaker 2: us it's and I really have really learned this from
Speaker 2: doing big exhibitions the work. When it works, it's so
Speaker 2: much an experience. It's so much that interaction between the
Speaker 2: viewer and the painting that we try to limit how
Speaker 2: many other ways there are to see the paintings or
Speaker 2: things that are.
Speaker 3: Like roth Goes. They wanted people to really have that
Speaker 3: face to face interaction.
Speaker 1: Where's the location around the world, in the US and
Speaker 1: in New York Literally, I want to ask all three
Speaker 1: that hangs the most of your father's art.
Speaker 2: Well, the National Gallery of Art in Washington would they
Speaker 2: were the recipients of my father's foundation. That's a complex story,
Speaker 2: but let's just leave it at that. And so they
Speaker 2: have a dedicated Rothko room on the top floor of
Speaker 2: one of the towers of the Impay Building, and they
Speaker 2: often have roth Goes dotted elsewhere in their collection. They're
Speaker 2: also incredibly generous alone in their works to Rothco exhibitions elsewhere, but.
Speaker 3: They consistently have a room.
Speaker 2: MoMA has for the last five years had a room
Speaker 2: up They have I think ten roth Goes on canvas
Speaker 2: plus more on paper. And the Metropolitan has also hung
Speaker 2: room off and on for the last several years. But
Speaker 2: they're major Rothko holdings in Los Angeles at the Houston Houston,
Speaker 2: at the Menil Collection. Of course, the Rothko Chapel is
Speaker 2: its own artwork, but La Mocha has a fabulous collection
Speaker 2: of Rothko's. A Museum of the Artistitute of Chicago has
Speaker 2: three major Rothkoes, so they're dotted around this country. And
Speaker 2: then the Tate Gallery in London they have a set
Speaker 2: of those murals that my father painted for the Four Seasons,
Speaker 2: as well as three other wonderful painters.
Speaker 1: And one your father painted for the Four Seasons are
Speaker 1: on display at the Tate.
Speaker 2: They have nine of the thirty three, so he put
Speaker 2: together the others. He put together a group and gifted
Speaker 2: them to the Tates in nineteen seventy because he had
Speaker 2: such good interactions with them and with the British public
Speaker 2: around his artwork. So they've had that Rothko room basically
Speaker 2: on a more or less permanent display for the last
Speaker 2: fifty years. And then there's another group in Japan at
Speaker 2: the calm War Museum, a group of seven that was
Speaker 2: a group that my sister and I put together and
Speaker 2: they've created a dedicated room, and the others are at
Speaker 2: the National Gallery and a few in private collections.
Speaker 1: What's a book you would recommend which I'm going to
Speaker 1: run out the door and go buy it right now,
Speaker 1: that shows this field of paintings of your father's. If
Speaker 1: I want to see in a book what the Four
Speaker 1: Seasons paintings were, what they look like, because I've never
Speaker 1: seen them, I don't think. What do you think as
Speaker 1: a book? That's a great book in terms of displaying
Speaker 1: a sampling of your father's work.
Speaker 2: Well, my sister and I put together the most comprehensive
Speaker 2: book that's ever ever been done a few years ago.
Speaker 2: It's a resolute published it's just a public publishist in
Speaker 2: two thousand and twenty three, I believe it was, and
Speaker 2: it's a large slipcase volume. It's just called Mark Rothko
Speaker 2: and Rizzoli is a publisher, and I think there are
Speaker 2: are two hundred and forty works. That's both paintings and
Speaker 2: on paper. And then the Rothki Catalog reson of paintings
Speaker 2: of just the paintings on canvas. It's over eight hundred
Speaker 2: works and that's still in print, and that's a Yale University.
Speaker 2: So both of those are going to get you more
Speaker 2: enough Rothkie for a lifetime.
Speaker 1: Enough bang for the buck there. I think it's interesting
Speaker 1: that you say it's a strong presence of this stuff
Speaker 1: in Japan. I'm wondering, does your father's work this is
Speaker 1: a glib word, but does it play better in certain
Speaker 1: parts of the world than others? Absolutely absolutely did the
Speaker 1: Japanese love his work. They were early collectors of his work.
Speaker 1: There are major paintings in multiple collections around Japan, both
Speaker 1: private and public, and they have this Miural Room, and
Speaker 1: there's going to be There was a really good show
Speaker 1: in ninety six there, and we're going to do another
Speaker 1: show in twenty twenty eight. That is not my show,
Speaker 1: but working with a dear friend of mine who's a
Speaker 1: fabulous curator, Sorommi Hayashi, and she has a fabulous team.
Speaker 1: This could be shown at multiple locations around Japan and
Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight. Now, you mentioned something about the gestalt
Speaker 1: of your father's paintings. You approached it that way. I think,
Speaker 1: what did you mean by that?
Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting In the course of doing this
Speaker 2: exhibition in Paris that was last year and which had
Speaker 2: I think eight hundred and fifty thousand.
Speaker 3: Visitors, which was remarkable.
Speaker 2: But I did a lot of tours during that time
Speaker 2: and somebody actually pulled me aside at one point we
Speaker 2: say and said to me, you know, I noticed you
Speaker 2: never get up close to the paintings. You're never like
Speaker 2: looking at the details. You're always standing back. And it's true,
Speaker 2: and I do that with my father's work. I do
Speaker 2: that with other work as well, but especially my father's.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of details.
Speaker 2: There are a lot more details than people would think
Speaker 2: in these big, broad, abstract works, but in fact it's
Speaker 2: all additive. It's all these different layers of color. There's
Speaker 2: a summation and sort of one feeling that you get
Speaker 2: from the painting. And so while it's interesting to see
Speaker 2: how it's made, I think the idea is to have
Speaker 2: a conversation with the painting. Through that painting, have a
Speaker 2: conversation with my father about what's important in the world,
Speaker 2: what's our common human experience, Where are you at psychologically
Speaker 2: right now? And you don't get that from looking at oh,
Speaker 2: there's a little hint of white coming out here. You
Speaker 2: get that from actually taking in the whole painting. And
Speaker 2: it's almost a full body experience it really, it's beyond
Speaker 2: just the sensation of looking when I go.
Speaker 1: To museums and I want to look at art, and
Speaker 1: of course art for me is as much as paintings,
Speaker 1: and on an even keel with paintings is film and photography.
Speaker 1: I went to the Prato once because I was there
Speaker 1: making a film and I was off this day, and
Speaker 1: I realized I couldn't devour it in a day or
Speaker 1: a week, but I spent two days and I walked
Speaker 1: one section of it, and then I finally get to
Speaker 1: what I'm after, which is the Velasquez christ that's at
Speaker 1: the Prado, and I finally confronted towards the end of
Speaker 1: the second day. It's kind of at the buzzer here
Speaker 1: I find the painting and I'm standing there. I mean,
Speaker 1: the tears just start rolling down my face.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is my this is my Jesus, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean.
Speaker 1: What I learned at that trip to the Prado in
Speaker 1: those two days was you have to drain yourself and
Speaker 1: you have to really really do the concentrated relaxation that
Speaker 1: is the hallmark of Strasburg's teaching about acting. You must
Speaker 1: empty yourself and just be present and just keep your
Speaker 1: focus on yourself. And the same I found was seeing
Speaker 1: and experiencing painting. I had to go and really really be,
Speaker 1: turn my phone off and just to have everything happen.
Speaker 3: You know, when it was there. I get exhausted.
Speaker 2: In museums, like after a couple of hours, it is
Speaker 2: draining because if you're really having those intense interactions, it
Speaker 2: pulls a lot out of you. That is arguably my
Speaker 2: favorite museum in the world, the Proudu, and it just
Speaker 2: I'm incredulous.
Speaker 3: My father never saw it. I mean it was it
Speaker 3: was all Franco controlled all through his adulthood. And he
Speaker 3: never never went.
Speaker 2: And I mean he saw great alpgrad coach in Velascz
Speaker 2: in New York, but he never saw the whole suite
Speaker 2: that they had at the Prado, along with you know,
Speaker 2: the Broigels and the Bosches and the Goyas and the Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's pretty, it's.
Speaker 3: Pretty incredible place.
Speaker 2: Was he much of a traveler, No, hated to travel,
Speaker 2: didn't want to leave the studio, so didn't want to
Speaker 2: leave the studio, would not fly. So all he went
Speaker 2: three trips to Europe, all by boat and almost exclusively
Speaker 2: in Italy. So I have an upcoming exhibition, last one
Speaker 2: I'm going to do in Fernanzi in Florence. Not so
Speaker 2: we've we've this, this show has almost happened. A show
Speaker 2: contemporary ardor now for the not in their own, not
Speaker 2: in their collection. Occasionally they'll do, you know, comparisons, or
Speaker 2: they'll do they'll do discussions between contemporary and older art.
Speaker 2: But it's complicated working in Italy because all the museums
Speaker 2: are controlled by the municipalities and the government changes, which
Speaker 2: it does frequent.
Speaker 3: Then your exhibition is paused, discarded, what have you.
Speaker 2: So this is our third go of it, but we're
Speaker 2: working with a private foundation this time, so I'm pretty
Speaker 2: confident it's going to come off next year or at
Speaker 2: a year and a half.
Speaker 3: But that was my father.
Speaker 2: My father was just basically in a lifelong wrestling match
Speaker 2: with all those Italian Renaissance artists, loving so much of
Speaker 2: what they did, questioning a lot of what they did,
Speaker 2: and really just seeing artists who were asking the same
Speaker 2: kind of questions that he was, and fascinated by their
Speaker 2: attempts to answer them and not always thinking that they
Speaker 2: got it right.
Speaker 3: But he loved going.
Speaker 2: I mean, you'd spend eight or ten hours a day
Speaker 2: in churches and museums in Italy and just take it
Speaker 2: all in and just sort of put himself in their
Speaker 2: shoes and look at each of these paintings or altarpieces
Speaker 2: or frescoes or whatever it was, and try to imagine
Speaker 2: what is he trying to say in that, How is
Speaker 2: he trying to achieve it? What am I trying to
Speaker 2: do in my own painting that's similar and different?
Speaker 1: Was your father a fan of other painters?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, there were many artists that he just worshiped Turner
Speaker 2: primary Rembrandt. Also loved Turner and Rembrandt and Matis for
Speaker 2: amongst more modern voices. So Matisa's famous red studio painting,
Speaker 2: there's been there was a show at a moment few
Speaker 2: years ago. It's now traveled to France. That painting came
Speaker 2: to MoMA in the nineteen forties and my father went
Speaker 2: there to look at it every single day for six months,
Speaker 2: and he was just overwhelmed by the idea that you
Speaker 2: could basically take a canvas and just make it just
Speaker 2: covered in a color. And yes there are a few
Speaker 2: details around the canvas, but you're just overwhelmed by the
Speaker 2: redness the red studio Matis Matis. He loved Matis. He
Speaker 2: loved both the simplicity but also the boldness to just
Speaker 2: say what he wanted to say very directly, and not
Speaker 2: to decorate the painting with things that were not necessarily
Speaker 2: only put in exactly what he needed.
Speaker 1: Was he a fan of any contemporary artists?
Speaker 2: I mean Matisa was contemporary. Matist dies not that long
Speaker 2: before my father does, so, I mean he had a
Speaker 2: very long life and my father did not. But I
Speaker 2: mean he certainly not only looked at, but actually helped
Speaker 2: promote some of the work of his contemporaries in the
Speaker 2: New York school. Clifford Still, who was a few years
Speaker 2: is older, he got him his first show at Peggy
Speaker 2: Guggenheim's Art of the Century Gallery and actually curated that
Speaker 2: and hung it himself. He I think was more than
Speaker 2: respectful of the other artists in that school, but he
Speaker 2: didn't hang.
Speaker 1: Out with them at Somehowgonquin Roundtable of artists.
Speaker 2: Of Continers Well, I mean they had their own little,
Speaker 2: more private roundtable that He and Barnett Newman and Af
Speaker 2: Gottlieb were particularly a trio, and they wrote little manifestos together.
Speaker 3: But they talked out art a lot, and eventually that
Speaker 3: broke down.
Speaker 2: But he was friendly with Franz Klein, he was friendly
Speaker 2: with Mother Well, and he certainly knew Paulack and Decooning
Speaker 2: well too.
Speaker 1: Christopher Rothko, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell a friend
Speaker 1: and they sure to follow. Here's the thing on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. When
Speaker 1: we come back, Christopher Rothkoe details how the Mark Rothkoe
Speaker 1: estate was defrauded after his father's death and who stood
Speaker 1: to profit. I'm Alec Baldwin, and this is here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Before Christopher Rothko was traveling the world as the ambassador
Speaker 1: of his father's legacy, he worked as a clinical psychologist.
Speaker 3: He gave up his practice when he.
Speaker 1: Moved to New York and began curating exhibits of his
Speaker 1: father's work full time. I was curious if he missed
Speaker 1: his previous career and whether he's ever considered returning to
Speaker 1: that field of work.
Speaker 3: You know, I missed it when it was at its best.
Speaker 2: I worked at some clinics when I was in Michigan
Speaker 2: that were just fabulous places where I could see people
Speaker 2: at low feet and I saw a really broad spectrum
Speaker 2: of people and could work with them multiple times a
Speaker 2: week for extended periods of time. World of the HMO
Speaker 2: came into being right around the time I got my degree,
Speaker 2: and it really limited how much I could see patients
Speaker 2: for how long And they sometimes come to me with
Speaker 2: a diagnosis and a medication plan already, and what I
Speaker 2: really could do with him was was very limited. So,
Speaker 2: you know, there's been a lot of push and pulls
Speaker 2: since then. But the freedom I had in those in
Speaker 2: those early years. I think she has gone Yeah, I
Speaker 2: think it's gone so.
Speaker 1: Well that way, which and which you know, someone said
Speaker 1: that to me. They said that some doctor I was
Speaker 1: saying maybe said to me that it's all changed in
Speaker 1: the sense that it's like you know, people lying sitting
Speaker 1: in a chair, lying on a couch and talking. Those
Speaker 1: days are over because it takes too long. You know,
Speaker 1: that takes a long time.
Speaker 3: Lock down.
Speaker 2: It costs money, crazily expensive. I mean, insurance won't pay
Speaker 2: for that. So either you're charging a lot of money
Speaker 2: or you it's hard. You this in New York, But
Speaker 2: in other places where maybe your rent's not so high,
Speaker 2: you can have a sliding scale, which is what I
Speaker 2: was able to do in ann Arbor. I was able
Speaker 2: to see people at different levels of fees. But you know,
Speaker 2: in New York, you're you're hoping that you cover your
Speaker 2: rent after like three weeks of doing therapy.
Speaker 1: What's next for you in terms of the you have
Speaker 1: more books in you or do you have more you
Speaker 1: wrote a memoir about growing up with.
Speaker 2: Your father or no, no, I haven't ridden a memoir.
Speaker 2: I've been actually urging my sister, who you knew HI
Speaker 2: much better. She was nineteen when he died, so she
Speaker 2: knew him much better. So we've been slowly she's she's
Speaker 2: written a couple of biographical glass Hayes for catalogs, but
Speaker 2: the family has been urging her to write her want
Speaker 2: to you know, I think maybe she's slowly coming around.
Speaker 2: You know, we both went off into our own professions.
Speaker 2: She was a medical doctor, our psychologist or kind of
Speaker 2: medicine to ship practice. Well she's retired now, but she
Speaker 2: was a pathologist and really and then ended up being
Speaker 2: a doctor who was doing blood chemistry. So yeah, so
Speaker 2: she Yeah, she never really wanted the limelight. She does
Speaker 2: two interviews, but she really wants to keep the focus
Speaker 2: on our father.
Speaker 1: We couldn't have done this without your sister as well,
Speaker 1: obviously could because you wouldn't be here right now if
Speaker 1: the two of you hadn't been doing this on a
Speaker 1: collaborative level of maintaining this.
Speaker 3: And one thing we didn't talk about all today, but
Speaker 3: you know, the estate was defrauded. You were defrauded. How
Speaker 3: this stay?
Speaker 2: So, My father's is one of the first artists foundations,
Speaker 2: and it was set up for him by his accountant
Speaker 2: slash lawyer, who turns out was also the CFO of
Speaker 2: his gallery, and really as soon as my father passed,
Speaker 2: before my mother even passed away, they started passing all
Speaker 2: the major works from the estate to the gallery for
Speaker 2: sale had never yet to Marlborough Gallley, which had never
Speaker 2: been never been the understanding they were supposed to. They
Speaker 2: were supposed to take the work and place it in museums.
Speaker 2: They were supposed to do charitable work on behalf of
Speaker 2: older artists who had not had success. And my sister
Speaker 2: started catching wind of this. She was nineteen years old
Speaker 2: and asked. These were people she'd known for years, the
Speaker 2: executors of the estates, And I said, what's going on?
Speaker 2: And they were just completely dismissive of her. They just
Speaker 2: assumed she was stupid and she would go away. And
Speaker 2: the more dismissive they were, the more curious she got.
Speaker 2: And she ended up getting a lawyer and it found
Speaker 2: and it turns out that they were really defrauding the state.
Speaker 2: They were selling them to Marlborough Gallley for next to nothing,
Speaker 2: and Marlborough was turning around and selling them for eight
Speaker 2: ten times the price. So it was an incredibly long
Speaker 2: legal battle. We had very little money to fight it,
Speaker 2: and they almost bled us dry. But after years and
Speaker 2: years and years of court battle and documents back and forth,
Speaker 2: I mean we have filebox after filebox of legal documents,
Speaker 2: we actually we actually prevailed, and we prevailed through two appeals,
Speaker 2: and we actually got back quite a few paintings and
Speaker 2: some financial compensation for the one set that we couldn't
Speaker 2: get back.
Speaker 3: But it was really quite miraculous.
Speaker 2: And my sister gave up, I mean really some of
Speaker 2: the best years of her life, while somehow she did
Speaker 2: this while she was in college and medical school, going
Speaker 2: to med school, having got her her first two children.
Speaker 2: She somehow managed her to do this. And I am forever.
Speaker 2: I'm forever in her dath.
Speaker 3: Others hears she will never lord that over me because
Speaker 3: she is just a very generous soul. But she is
Speaker 3: forever my hero.
Speaker 1: Is there a documentary I can recommend when I want
Speaker 1: to study a subject, I don't just neecessarily reflexively go
Speaker 1: into the documentary boo, because so many of them are
Speaker 1: just very tepid and very you know, not that special.
Speaker 1: Is there one of your father that you think is
Speaker 1: worth people watching to learn more about him?
Speaker 2: There have been a bunch of documentaries I don't know
Speaker 2: how many of them are readily available for streaming or
Speaker 2: on DVD. But there was one that was done just
Speaker 2: for the pandemic called Paintings Must Be Miraculous And it
Speaker 2: was done actually by Oregon Public Broadcasting and then got
Speaker 2: taken up by the PBS Masters series.
Speaker 1: Oh, he was an American Masters. American Masters.
Speaker 3: Wow. And yes, and well it's a well done film. Yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 3: it's just about him.
Speaker 1: When can we expect the next major exhibition of your
Speaker 1: father's work in New York?
Speaker 3: So we're actually a little overdue for a New York show.
Speaker 2: There's been so much activity around around the world that
Speaker 2: we haven't really had a big New York show. There
Speaker 2: was a fabulous exhibition of his paintings on paper this
Speaker 2: past year that was in Washington, but then it traveled
Speaker 2: overseas to Oslo. So we really overdue for a New
Speaker 2: York show. And yeah, it's my sister and I've actually
Speaker 2: talked to each other. It's time to start talking to
Speaker 2: museums and find out what's the right moment, what's the
Speaker 2: right location. But yeah, I think before the end of
Speaker 2: the decade. It's been since nineteen ninety nine, and what.
Speaker 1: You reveal from people who don't know as much as
Speaker 1: I don't know much about this. What you insinuate there
Speaker 1: is that the key to these exhibition is you've got
Speaker 1: to gather and glean everything together that you want from
Speaker 1: around the world. You have to get them to give
Speaker 1: you the paintings. Correct.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I mean that was my big job with the
Speaker 2: Paris Show. It's one hundred and fifteen works and they
Speaker 2: all had to be they all had to be requested
Speaker 2: and I mean timed. Yeah, and some of those were,
Speaker 2: you know, immediate yeses, and others we went back three
Speaker 2: or four times and then sometimes had to redirect. Yet, No,
Speaker 2: it's especially you know, these are often large paintings and
Speaker 2: very complex to ship, and people and institutions are reluctant
Speaker 2: to let them go.
Speaker 1: Are you perplexed by the prices that are attached to
Speaker 1: your father's work?
Speaker 2: Now, Yeah, I'm perplexed by those prices. I'm perplexed by
Speaker 2: a lot of prices in the.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so I don't think you can really put a
Speaker 2: price on great art. But I'm you know, I think
Speaker 2: it's I'm glad that's something that is so valued, because
Speaker 2: I think there's a whole lot of garbage out in
Speaker 2: the world that people you know, spend crazy amounts of
Speaker 2: money for, and you know, the idea of life the
Speaker 2: art is it's forever on some level, hopefully it lasts forever,
Speaker 2: but certain the feeling behind it is something that is,
Speaker 2: you know, reaching back and looking forward, as opposed to
Speaker 2: some piece of plastic that it catches your fancy and
Speaker 2: you pay some crazy amount of money.
Speaker 1: For what's the highest number of your father's paintings have
Speaker 1: ever commanded?
Speaker 2: He has been whispered to me about private sales that
Speaker 2: are well in excess of this, but publicly, I think
Speaker 2: ninety two million was the highest. Eying, Yeah, it's I mean,
Speaker 2: he be scratching his head. I mean, I think after
Speaker 2: a certain number well below that, it's kind of monopoly money.
Speaker 2: And obviously it's a very limited group of people who
Speaker 2: can afford that.
Speaker 1: But hopefully he'd be scratching his head online at the
Speaker 1: bank so he can do it head scratching there. Well,
Speaker 1: was there anything you learned about your father surprised you
Speaker 1: as you immersed yourself more in his work and.
Speaker 2: His over I think the moment of discovery for me
Speaker 2: came in two thousand and three, two thousand and four
Speaker 2: when I edited his book of philosophical writings. He wrote
Speaker 2: actually a relatively young man, before he had any recognition
Speaker 2: as an artist, and I see him really churning through ideas,
Speaker 2: and I'm trying to get a hold of what he's
Speaker 2: trying to say. He doesn't acknowledge at any point in
Speaker 2: the book that he's an artist, doesn't have his he
Speaker 2: never really sort of takes an eye position as an artist,
Speaker 2: doesn't acknowledge.
Speaker 3: That he paints.
Speaker 2: But he's working through all of these questions, all of
Speaker 2: these questions, and I realize as I'm editing this book
Speaker 2: that not only am I asking myself, as a non artist,
Speaker 2: a lot of the same questions. These are questions about painting,
Speaker 2: but there are also questions about how we see the world.
Speaker 2: I ask myself these same questions. I also realize that
Speaker 2: he and I write quite similarly, which actually, to my mind,
Speaker 2: gave me license to edit the book because I felt
Speaker 2: like I was editing with a similar voice. And in
Speaker 2: the end, it was the conversation about art that we
Speaker 2: never had. And you know what, I'm not sure even
Speaker 2: if he had lived another twenty five years, maybe we
Speaker 2: never would have had it either. And this was a
Speaker 2: chance to really be sort of inside his head a
Speaker 2: little bit and have that talk.
Speaker 3: I mean sometimes it actually stop and say, you know, Dad,
Speaker 3: what the hell are you saying?
Speaker 2: Trying to crack a nut that he had really, you know,
Speaker 2: it was an unfinished manuscript, so he didn't some flesh
Speaker 2: out the ideas sometimes and I had to do my
Speaker 2: best tur into it that but it was fabulous because
Speaker 2: I felt like it brought me closer to him in
Speaker 2: this strange way posthumously, and it was really was really gift.
Speaker 1: You know, when you see paintings that speak to you
Speaker 1: this way, that pull you in in this way, you
Speaker 1: just want to learn more and more about the artists,
Speaker 1: you know. I wanted to learn everything I could about
Speaker 1: Caravaggio when I would go to Italy and stay at
Speaker 1: the Hostler and go down to the Pope below and
Speaker 1: go into the cathedral. They are the little mini cathedral
Speaker 1: and there are the two framing side to side Caravaggio
Speaker 1: there in front of that, which they had to protect
Speaker 1: with some It looks like a not really very sturdy
Speaker 1: security system. I mean, somebody could go in there to
Speaker 1: throw these people who want to kill art. What do
Speaker 1: you think about these people that are throwing buckets of
Speaker 1: soup and all kinds of organic matter on paintings and
Speaker 1: protesting climate change for example.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm all for protesting climate change. I wish they
Speaker 2: would find other ways to protest it. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: I think they're targeting artwork because they see these as
Speaker 2: icons and trophies. But in fact, the artists who made these,
Speaker 2: in almost every case struggled their whole life to try
Speaker 2: and get their message across and get it before the public.
Speaker 2: So it's I think they choose a very unfortunate target.
Speaker 2: And uh, yeah, you know, I am all for making
Speaker 2: a lot of noise about climate change. It's it's something
Speaker 2: I'm passionate about. But please don't go into a museum
Speaker 2: and damage something that belongs to all of us. It's there,
Speaker 2: it's there for.
Speaker 3: All of us.
Speaker 1: My thanks to Christopher Rothkoe. This episode was recorded at
Speaker 1: CDM Studios in New York City. We're produced by Kathleen Russo,
Speaker 1: Zach MacNeice, and Victoria De Martin. Our engineer is Frank Imperial.
Speaker 1: Our social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. Here's the thing
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