Rothkie

Untitled Watercolor by Mark Rothko, 1945

I've had the pleasure these past three months to teach art history to my seven-year-old granddaughter every Wednesday morning.

We've already Zoomed through the careers of such greats as Georgia O'Keefe, Mary Cassatt, Edward Hopper, Wayne Thiebaud, David Hockney, Andrew Wyeth and Pablo Picasso. Alice Neel is on deck.

Before the first lesson, I searched the web for guidance on teaching art to a child and found it in the unlikeliest of places: the so-called Scribble Book of Mark Rothko.

During the Depression, Rothko—still the starving unknown—ran inexpensive art classes for kids at the Brooklyn Jewish Center, where he was known affectionately as "Rothkie."

In the Scribble Book, he jotted nearly fifty pages of notes that pedagogues later boiled into Rothko's five principles for teaching art to kids:

Teach kids that art is self-expression—and that everyone starts life as an artist. Just as kids do when handed crayons—until life gets in the way—adult artists are expressing their felt emotions when they make art.

Don't quash their expressiveness—it's fragile. Long demos rigid assignments turn kids off to art, so avoid them. Rothko would simply set out his students' supplies and let them leap into free-form creation.

Exhibit students’ works. The art teacher's purpose is to instill self-confidence. Rothko would organize public shows of students' art across New York City, including one at the Brooklyn Museum. He also exhibited student work alongside his own at his very first solo show at the Portland Art Museum.

Teach art history with modern art. Kids can learn from modernists, whose work is like their own. The Old Masters were too precise and fussy.

Cultivate creative citizens. The teacher's other purpose is to drive imaginations. “Most of these children will probably lose their imaginativeness and vivacity as they mature,” he wrote in the Scribble Book. “But a few will not. And it is hoped that in their cases, the experience of eight years in my classroom will not be forgotten and they will continue to find the same beauty about them. As to the others, it is hoped, that their experience will help them to revive their own early artistic pleasures in the work of others.”