Rothko's Seagram Murals - Part VI
7:00 AMRothko's Seagram Murals:
A Tumultuous Journey to the Tate
Part VI
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| Mark Rothko, Red on Maroon (Section 74), 1959 |
“Rothko watched my reaction as I examined the arrangement of large canvases and said, ‘I have made a place’… It was a long visit, with intermittent conversation, and at the end, as I was taking my leave, Rothko said: ‘They are not pictures’” (155). Through his claim of “making a place,” Rothko exposes his belief that the murals were an entity that created its own sense of place, not needing or wanting outside influences as a physical anchor.
This leads to the consensus that Rothko rejected the Seagram commission because his paintings would not be the focus of the restaurant goers; instead the paintings would fade into the background as potential viewers became lost in the expensive food and frivolous conversation. On the contrary, through the Tate exhibition “he was being offered ‘a separate space’ for a selection of already existing paintings, and that space was not a dining room” (Breslin 513). The stark contrast between the commercial Four Seasons Restaurant and the Tate’s Gallery 18 was never more clear—previously devalued as merely “wall decorations” (Breslin 373), Rothko’s paintings were now being offered a sanctuary of their own.
Ed. Note: Barstow alumna Sydney Ayers, '09, has graciously allowed My Kid Could Paint That to publish one of her recent papers on Mark Rothko. We will present the paper in seven parts. Ayers studies art history at Dartmouth University, and this spring she will complete her senior honors thesis on the English country houses of architect Robert Adam.
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