Mark Rothko okhtoR kraM

a pale screenprint in light gray rectangles floats in a large horizontal sheet. a small black text marlborough in the upper left corner, and mark rothko in large letters in the center, twice but overlapping in such a way that they're mirrored, making it all illegible. but rb kitaj, who made this print of a photo of a transparent dust jacket, gave a hint in the title.
R.B. Kitaj, Marlborough (Mark Rothko), 1969-70, screenprint, 19×17 in. on 23 x 30 sheet or so, from a 50-print portfolio in an ed. 150, image via MoMA, who photographed the whole sheet

While factchecking for a panel, I stumbled across this wild screenprint, Marlborough (Mark Rothko) (1969-70), by R. B. Kitaj.

It’s from a portfolio of 50 screenprints Kitaj made in London, In Our Time: Covers for a Small Library After the Life for the Most Part, that reproduces book covers from Kitaj’s own library. In Our Time includes some rare edition deep cuts, but overall, Kitaj seems to select covers as both aesthetic and found objects, rather than [just] for literary reference.

a deep purple painting with a cracked and ragged thin white line down the center, a depiction of the cover of a barnett newman exhibition catalogue by david diao, where the wear of the spine becomes a newman-style zip, via greene naftali gallery
David Diao, BN Spine (2), 2013, acrylic and silkscreen, 72 x 100 in., image via Greene Naftali

That means many prints that show the age and wear of covers, not just the design, which reminded me of David Diao’s painting based on his copy of a Barnett Newman catalogue, where the worn spine becomes a jagged zip.

But nothing else matched the manipulated, mirroring of this Rothko print, which seemed to have its own ghostly Rothko composition, turned sideways. Until I realized that Kitaj didn’t manipulate anything. The print depicts, not the cover of Marlborough’s 1964 exhibition catalogue, but its printed mylar dust jacket.

a crappy snapshot of a softcover catalogue for a 1964 marlborough gallery exhibition of mark rothko paintings depicts a red and orange rothko on the cover, with a mylar dust jacket wrapped around it, printed with the gallery and artist name, via an abebooks seller in argentina, but it could be anywhere
Marlborough Mark Rothko (Feb-March 1964) via abebooks

NGA has all 50 prints in Kitaj’s In Our Time portfolio [nga.gov]
MoMA seems to only have 47, but at least photographs the whole sheet [moma]
“Kitaj jokingly referred to these repurposed book covers as his ‘soup can.'” [buffaloakg]
The Huntington showed some In Our Time prints in 2024 [huntington.org]
Seems hard to keep a set of 50 prints together, or to get more than $200 apiece for them [rago/toomey]