Before they teamed up in 1943 to famously educate a New York Times critic about developments in American modernism, writing, ‘We favor the simple expression of complex thought,’ Mark Rothko and Adolph Gottlieb worked in a style vastly different from the models of abstraction each would come to pioneer. A joint show at 125 Newbury demonstrates, however, that they were edging closer to their signature styles in paintings of their friends and surroundings in the ‘20s and ‘30s. Here, Rothko’s bathers dominate a monochrome beach with their large, flat forms and, contrary to the summer weather, convey a chill with their hunched postures and turned backs. (On view in Tribeca through July 25th).
