Editing Mark Rothko (section)

===Seagram Murals–Four Seasons restaurant commission===
{{main|Seagram murals}}
{{anchor|Seagram}}In 1958, Rothko was awarded the first of two major mural commissions, which proved both rewarding and frustrating.{{sfn|Breslin|1993|p=371–383,404–409}} The beverage company [[Seagram|Joseph Seagram and Sons]] had recently completed the new [[Seagram Building]] skyscraper on [[Park Avenue]], designed by architects [[Ludwig Mies van der Rohe|Mies van der Rohe]] and [[Philip Johnson]]. Rothko agreed to provide paintings for the building's new luxury restaurant, [[The Four Seasons Restaurant|the Four Seasons]]. This was, as art historian [[Simon Schama]] put it, "bring[ing] his monumental dramas right into the belly of the beast".<ref>Schama, p. 398.</ref>

For Rothko, this [[Seagram murals]] commission presented a new challenge, since it was the first time he was required not only to design a coordinated series of paintings but to produce an artwork space concept for a large, specific interior. Over the following three months, Rothko completed forty paintings, comprising three full series in dark red and brown. He altered his horizontal format to vertical, to complement the restaurant's vertical features: columns, walls, doors, and windows.{{citation needed|date=September 2021}}

The following June, Rothko and his family again traveled to Europe. While on the [[SS Independence|SS ''Independence'']] he disclosed to journalist John Fischer, who was publisher of ''[[Harper's Magazine]]'', that his true intention for the Seagram murals was to paint "something that will ruin the appetite of every son-of-a-bitch who ever eats in that room". He hoped, he told Fischer, that his painting would make the restaurant's patrons "feel that they are trapped in a room where all the doors and windows are bricked up, so that all they can do is butt their heads forever against the wall".{{sfn|Breslin|1993|p=376}}

{{stack|
[[File:Biblioteca medicea laurenziana, vestibolo e scala di michelangelo, 07.jpg|thumb|Vestibule of the Laurentian Library.]]
[[File:Villa dei Misteri (Pompei) WLM 025.JPG|thumb|Frescoes in the Villa of the Mysteries.]]
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While in Europe, the Rothkos traveled to Rome, Florence, Venice, and Pompeii. In Florence, he visited [[Michelangelo]]'s [[Laurentian Library]], to see first-hand the library's vestibule, from which he drew further inspiration for the murals.{{sfn|Ashton|1983|p=147}} He remarked that "the room had exactly the feeling that I wanted ... it gives the visitor the feeling of being caught in a room with the doors and windows walled-in shut." He was further influenced by the somber colors of the murals in the Pompeiian [[Villa of the Mysteries]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Jonathan Jones |date=December 6, 2002 |title=Feeding fury |work=[[The Guardian]] |url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2002/dec/07/artsfeatures}}</ref> Following the trip to Italy, the Rothkos voyaged to Paris, Brussels, Antwerp and Amsterdam, before going to London, where Rothko spent time in the British Museum studying the Turner watercolors. They then traveled to Somerset and stayed with the artist [[William Scott (artist)|William Scott]], who was just starting a large mural project, and they discussed the respective issues of public and private sponsorship.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Malvern |first=Jack |date=October 26, 2013 |title=Letter Unravels Mystery of Tate's Rothko Murals |work=The Times of London}}</ref> After the visit the Rothkos continued to St. Ives in the West of England and met up with Patrick Heron and other Cornish painters before returning to London and then the United States.{{citation needed|date=September 2021}}

Back in New York, Rothko and his wife Mell visited the nearly completed Four Seasons restaurant. Upset with the restaurant's dining atmosphere, which he considered pretentious and inappropriate for the display of his works, Rothko refused to continue the project and returned his cash advance to the Seagram and Sons Company. Seagram had intended to honor Rothko's emergence to prominence through his selection, and his breach of contract and public expression of outrage was unexpected.{{citation needed|date=September 2021}}

Rothko kept the commissioned paintings in storage until 1968. Given that Rothko had known in advance about the luxury decor of the restaurant, and the social class of its future patrons, the motives for his abrupt repudiation remain mysterious, although he did write to his friend William Scott in England, "Since we had discussed our respective murals I thought you might be interested to know that mine are still with me. When I returned, I looked again at my paintings and then visited the premises for which they were destined, it seemed clear to me at once that the two were not for each other."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Whitfield |first=Sarah |title=William Scott Catalogue Raisonné |publisher=Thames & Hudson |year=2013 |isbn=978-0500970416 |location=London |pages=Vol 2 p.15}}</ref> A temperamental personality, Rothko never fully explained his conflicted emotions over the incident.<ref>Schama, pp. 428–434.</ref> One reading is offered by his biographer, James E.B. Breslin: the Seagram project could be seen as an acting-out of a familiar, in this case self-created "drama of trust and betrayal, of advancing into the world, then withdrawing, angrily, from it ... He was an Isaac who at the last moment refused to yield to Abraham."{{sfn|Breslin|1993|p=408}} The final series of ''Seagram Murals'' was dispersed, and now hangs in three locations: London's [[Tate Britain]], Japan's [[Kawamura Memorial Museum]], and the [[National Gallery of Art]] in Washington, D.C.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Tate Modern, Rothko Murals |url=http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/display/mark-rothko |access-date=July 13, 2011 |website=Tate Etc.}}</ref> This episode was the main basis for [[John Logan (writer)|John Logan]]'s 2009 play ''[[Red (play)|Red]]''.{{citation needed|date=September 2021}}

In October 2012, ''[[Black on Maroon]]'', one of the paintings in the Seagram series, was defaced with writing in black ink, while on display at Tate Modern. Restoration of the painting took 18 months. The [[BBC]]'s Arts Editor [[Will Gompertz]] explained that the ink from the vandal's marker pen had bled all the way through the canvas, causing "a deep wound, not a superficial graze", and that the vandal had caused "significant damage".<ref>{{Cite news |date=May 13, 2014 |title=Tate Modern unveils painstakingly restored Rothko |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/may/13/tate-modern-unveils-restored-mark-rothko-black-on-maroon |access-date=October 27, 2015}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=21 November 2012 |title=Rothko damage 'could take up to 18 months to repair'|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-20424251|access-date=9 February 2024}}</ref>