This 45-minute tour explores one of the outstanding strengths of the Museum's collections: the work of the Abstract Expressionists. Long recognized as among the foremost figures of the Abstract Expressionist vanguard, Mark Rothko (1903–1970) embraced the possibility of beauty in pure abstraction with a painterly eloquence that gave a new voice to American art. Although the artists known as Abstract Expressionists, or the New York School, were never a formal association, they did share some common values, favoring spontaneity and improvisation; dynamic, energetic gesture; and highly abstract images.