After a long trek through Expressionism and Surrealism, Rothko’s definitive style coalesced in 1950. Using canvases roughly the height and width of a human standing with outstretched arms, he created what he sometimes called “doors” and “windows” in luminous color. “ My pictures are indeed facades” he once said.
Muriel Steinberg acquired this painting soon after it was made.

Signature: Signed and dated (on verso): MARK ROTHKO/1953 #3

Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, 1953; Mr. and Mrs. Jay Z. Steinberg, Chicago, purchased from Parsons, April 1, 1953 - gift of Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006.

55 Americans '55, Milwaukee Art Institute, September 9- October 23, 1955, exh. cat., no. 46.

An American Choice: The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, May 21-September 27, 1981, exh. cat. by William S. Lieberman, pp. 81 (ill.), 156 (erroneously titled Number One).

Abstract Expressionism and Other Modern Works: The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, September 18, 2007 - February 3, 2008, exh. cat. edited by Gary Tinterow, Lisa Mintz Messinger, and Nan Rosenthal, no. 48, pp. 6 (ill.), 152-153 (ill.), 154-155 (essay by David Anfam).

Eleanor Page, "She Lives in an Art Museum," Chicago Tribune, September 13, 1964, section 3, p. 3.

Hilton Kramer, "Modernist Show Moves Met Firmly into Art of 20th Century," New York Times, May 22, 1981, pp. C1, C21.

Diana Loercher-Pazicky, "The Newman Bequest," Connaissance des Arts (U.S. ed.), no. 19, August 1981, p. 16 (ill.).

Also published in French edition of the above: Diana Loercher-Pazicky, "Une donation bienvenue," Connaissance des Arts, no. 354, August 1981, p. 20 (ill.).

Philippe de Montebello, Notable Acquisitions 1980 - 1981 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1981), p. 63 (ill.).

William Agee, "Muriel Kallis Newman: Life Among the Moders," Architectural Digest, December 1986, p. 70, p. 66 (ill.).

Eugene Victor Thaw, "The Abstract Expressionists," The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., vol. 44, no. 3, Winter 1986/87, no. 28, p. 35 (ill.).

Diane Waldman, Mark Rothko in New York (New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1994), ill. no. 31.

David Anfam, Mark Rothko: The Works on Canvas, A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, with The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., 1998), no. 486, p. 370 (ill.).