A Bike Path Now Runs Through the Portland Art Museum

"Shortly after opening its present-day campus, in 1932, the Portland Art Museum mounted Drawings and Water Colors by M. Rothkowitz. M. was Marcus, a Latvian Jewish émigré who'd spent his childhood in Portland and returned after a decade in New York for his first-ever museum exhibition. Fearing anti-Semitic persecution, he changed his name to Mark Rothko in 1940, though it was another decade before he-as it were- became art history's Mark Rothko, painter of monumental color field canvases."

"But at the bequest of an anonymous donor, the new 24,000-square-foot glass structure connecting the Portland Art Museum's existing buildings, which opens November 20, will be named the Mark Rothko Pavilion. The build-out cost $111 million, which came almost entirely from private donations, and which, ironically, is probably not enough to buy a Rothko painting today."

"Previously, the museum was essentially two large buildings: the travertine building housing the main entrance, bookshop, and primary gallery spaces, which was originally designed by Pietro Belluschi, and the former Masonic temple a block north, which the museum took over in 1992 and converted primarily into offices and event spaces. A 2005 renovation connected the buildings belowground, though it proved less successful in practice. It was easy to miss the fan favorite Monets and Picassos in the new modern and contemporary galleries across the corridor. "It was confusing," says Jordan Schnitzer, the commercial real estate magnate and arts philanthropist."

Mark Rothko's direct Portland ties were limited to a 1932 exhibition under his birth name, Marcus Rothkowitz; he later changed his name and built his career in New York. The Portland Art Museum will open a 24,000-square-foot glass connector named the Mark Rothko Pavilion on November 20, funded almost entirely by private donations costing $111 million. The expansion adds or updates more than 100,000 square feet of exhibition space, moving the museum into the top 25 percent of U.S. art museums by size. Historic buildings include a Belluschi travertine wing and a former Masonic temple acquired in 1992; a 2005 belowground connection proved confusing and made some major works easy to miss.

Read at Portland Monthly