De Hirsh Margules, Mother Ann Lighthouse, Eastern Point, Gloucester, 1946. Gouache on paper. Gift of Jean M. Horblit, 2002. [Acc. #2002.004.002]
The Cricket: Rothko Gift Marks Final Weeks of Landmark CAM Exhibition
By Erika Brown | September 5, 2026
This untitled 1934 watercolor by Mark Rothko of Gloucester Harbor has been donated by the artist’s son, Christopher, to the Cape Ann Museum’s permanent collection to mark the final weeks of the museum’s successful “Avery, Gottlieb & Rothko” summer exhibit. On September 27 the exhibit will close and move to Washington, DC. Courtesy Image
As the Cape Ann Museum’s landmark summer exhibition enters its final weeks in Gloucester, one of its signature works is staying behind.
Christopher Rothko, son of artist Mark Rothko, has donated his father’s 1934 watercolor and gouache Untitled (wharf, Gloucester, Massachusetts) to the museum’s permanent collection.
The work, which had been in Christopher Rothko’s personal collection, is currently on view in Avery, Gottlieb & Rothko: By the Sea, which closes Sept. 27.
The gift is significant on several levels. It is the first work by Mark Rothko to enter the Cape Ann Museum’s collection, and depicts Gloucester’s Inner Harbor as seen from East Gloucester, including fish flakes on a pier, a wharf structure and the city’s waterfront in the distance.
For Christopher Rothko, the painting’s return to Gloucester was particularly fitting.
“My gift reflects my genuine love for this remarkable town,” Rothko said, adding that the work is now “back home where it will be treasured.”
The donation also underscores the premise behind By the Sea, an exhibition that brings together 82 works tracing the largely overlooked Cape Ann connection among three major figures in 20th-century American art: Milton Avery, Adolph Gottlieb and Rothko. The exhibition includes loans from 26 institutions, including 16 museums around the country.
Avery began visiting Cape Ann in the 1920s and later introduced the younger Gottlieb and Rothko to the area. The three New York artists and friends spent summers here during the 1930s and ’40s, painting together while developing ideas that would carry into their increasingly distinctive styles.
The public response to the exhibition—and to our newly renovated galleries—has been impressive, with 16,500 visitors coming through the museum since it reopened after an extensive renovation on June 30.
Rothko’s Gloucester harbor and beach scenes are particularly revealing because they predate by years the large fields of color for which he would eventually become internationally known. Museum Director Oliver Barker said the exhibition traces an important period in Rothko’s development, when he was working in Gloucester alongside his mentor, Avery, and friend Gottlieb.
“Harbor and beach scenes were central to Rothko’s experience of Cape Ann and to his emerging artistic vision,” Barker said. He called the newly donated painting an important means of helping museum visitors understand “the profound role Cape Ann played in his artistic evolution.”
That local story will soon have a national audience. Following its Sept. 27 close in Gloucester, Avery, Gottlieb & Rothko: By the Sea travels to The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., where it opens in October. This marks the first time an exhibition organized by the Cape Ann Museum has traveled to a national museum.
“We are delighted that audiences well beyond the North Shore will have the opportunity to experience the exhibition this fall at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC,” said Barker. “This partnership marks the first institutional collaboration of its kind in the Cape Ann Museum’s 151-year history and opens the door to a new, dynamic model for collaboration moving forward.”
Before the exhibit leaves for Washington, Christopher Rothko and his sister, Dr. Kate Rothko Prizel, will return to Gloucester Sept. 17 and 18 for a two-day symposium accompanying the exhibition, where they will discuss their father’s development as an artist.
The Rothko arrives during a period of significant growth in CAM’s collection. In 2023, Janet and William “Wilber” Ellery James gave the museum 300 works of Cape Ann American art; apart from that collection, CAM says it has added hundreds of paintings, sculptures, drawings, decorative arts and archival materials in recent years.
Avery, Gottlieb & Rothko: By the Sea remains on view at the Cape Ann Museum, 27 Pleasant St., Gloucester, through Sept. 27. Timed tickets are required and additional exhibition admission fees apply.
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