“ROTHKO IS A WATERCOLORIST.” The typewritten note in Clyfford Still’s unpublished diary, undated but recorded no earlier than 1961, appears as if graven into a largely blank page.1 It is clearly meant as a condemnation: Still had long come to despise his former close friend. No explanation follows, and the painter doubtless believed none was necessary. What other epithet, after all, could more concisely telegraph all that separated them Still, with his vigorous, knife-sculpted impasto and flame-like forms, and Rothko, with his translucent layers and liquid shapes?
As I think of the successes and failures of artists’ legacies, I’ve learned different stories tell different life’s circumstances, depending on luck and persistent efforts on the behalf of those who are dedicating their lives to perpetually keeping the artists’ works alive and contextually relevant in the former, while in the latter what requires of the artists’ caretakers, be it members of their families, friends or colleagues there my lack of clarity of intentions or self-motivations.
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