CAM Talk: Artist Conversations Across Time: From Cape Ann to Rembrandt in Rothko’s “Thru the Window,” by Elliot Bostwick Davis

Description

By the late 1930s, Mark Rothko stood at a threshold—geographically, artistically, and personally. Having spent summers on Cape Ann, in Massachusetts, he was immersed in the home life of the Averys and Gottliebs, practicing artists whose studios, routines, and shared ambitions offered living models of artistic life beyond New York. At the same moment, Rothko was absorbing the legacy of earlier painters who had grappled with the meaning of the artist’s vocation, most notably Rembrandt. 

This talk explores Rothko’s Thru the Window (1938-39) as a meditation on the nature of creative space. Bringing together the artistic life observed on Cape Ann, the art-historical memory of Rembrandt’s Artist in His Studio, and tensions within Rothko’s own marriage to artist-turned-designer Edith Sachar, the painting emerges as a theatrical staging of artistic identity in formation. The window becomes both aperture and boundary—a site where present artistic conversations and inherited traditions converge.

This lecture is presented in conjunction with the museum’s upcoming exhibition, Avery, Gottlieb, & Rothko: By the Sea, offering context and insight into the artists and themes in the exhibit. For more information about upcoming lectures for the exhibition, please visit the Events Calendar.

Elliot Bostwick Davis is a former curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the John Moors Cabot Chair at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where she was responsible for leading the curatorial program for the acclaimed Art of the Americas Wing designed by Foster+Partners, and Director of the Norton Museum. She has published extensively on American art, including on Fitz Henry Lane, Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt, Horace Pippin, Loïs Maillou Jones, Norman Lewis, and Jamie Wyeth. Her most recent book, Edward Hopper & Cape Ann: Illuminating an American Landscape (Rizzoli/Electa, 2023) was a #1 Amazon Best Seller. Davis was a 2022 Fellow in Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative, and served as Senior Editor, Arts and Culture for Harvard’s Social Impact Review until 2024. Her current book, The Field Guide to Awe & Joy: Discovering Art That Makes Us Happier, builds on her work on art and well-being, including a recent essay, “Art Museums as Catalysts for Human Flourishing,” recently published in the Visual Arts Volume for the Humanities and Human Flourishing Project (Oxford University Press, 2024). Davis is currently serving as Guest Curator for the exhibition, Stuart Davis: Call and Response, appearing at The Brandywine Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, PA, and the Cape Ann Museum in Gloucester MA in 2028. She received her A.B. cum laude from Princeton University, and holds a Master’s from New York University, and a doctorate in art and archaeology from Columbia University.