The Seagram Murals are a series of large-scale paintings by abstract expressionist artist Mark Rothko.
The murals, characterized by their dark and somber palette, represented Rothko’s commitment to expressing the basic human emotions of tragedy, ecstasy, and doom while also showing a shift to his darker state of mind. His paintings use horizontal, vertical, and square formats to alter the viewer’s sense of space with reference to windows, doors, and portals.[1]
The paintings were originally commissioned for the Four Seasons restaurant in the Seagram Building of New York. Rothko worked on the series from 1958 to 1959 before eventually withdrawing from the project in 1960.
In 1969, he donated nine of the Seagram Murals to the Tate Modern in London. Today, seven murals can be found at the Kawamura Museum of Modern Art in Japan and thirteen at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. All others remain in the collection of Rothko's children.[1]: 409
- ^ a b Breslin, James E. (1998). Mark Rothko: A Biography. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226074061.