MODERN DOCUMENT
Herbert Ferber
THE ROTHKO CASE
In a memoir in the February 1983
New Criterion,
John
Meyers discusses, among other things, the celebrated Rothko case, a
case which for five years was one of the main subjects of conversa–
tion in and out of the art world. But in the course of the long litiga–
tion, so many complicated facts came out that only someone who
had been involved personally or had diligently researched the court
records and interviewed the protagonists would be qualified to write
about them. There has been one book, not entirely accurate, and
many superficial articles, more or less accurate . Mr. Meyers's ac–
count, however, is little more than a personal interpretation of what
he must have heard, and read in the
New York Times.
The facts, I might add, are important not only in themselves,
but because the Rothko case is tied to the saga of success of modern
art in America and reveals a good deal about the uneasy relation of
art to money-for many of the abstract expressionist painters, sculp–
tors, dealers, and collectors.
The Rothko case, it will be recalled, involved a suit brought by
me against the executors of Mark Rothko's estate, Bernard Reis, an
accountant handling the affairs of Rothko and many other artists
and an officer of the Marlborough Gallery, Theodoros Stamos, a
painter and close friend of Rothko, and another of Rothko's friends,
Morton Levine, professor of anthropology, and against Frank Lloyd,
the head of the Marlborough Gallery- for acting in self-interest and
against the interests of Mel Rothko's estate and Rothko's two chil–
dren, Kate and Christopher. After five years oflitigation, the allega–
tions against the three executors were sustained and Frank Lloyd
was found guilty.
Meyers begins with a charming and disarming narrative about
the artists and writers he knew as a gallery owner and editor. In
writing about the Rothko case, he quotes from a journal and from
conversations with various people, presumably to lend authenticity
to his views. But most of them had only a brief or passing acquain-
