On September 25, 1903, in Dvinsk, today’s Daugavpils, Markus Rothkowitz was born into the family of pharmacist Yakov Rothkowitz and Haya Goldin Rothkowitz. The world would later know him as Mark Rothko – one of the great names of abstract expressionism, whose fields of colour in New York galleries seemed far from a Latgalian childhood. Yet the birthplace remained visible: since 2013, the Rothko Museum has operated in the Arsenal building of Daugavpils Fortress.

The Rothko family moved from Daugavpils to the United States in 1912–1913, and the artist’s creative biography unfolded chiefly in America. In Latvia, his memory became part of Daugavpils’s international artistic identity.