[Seagram mural study]

Date
Dimensions
29 3/4 x 21 7/8 in. (75.6 x 55.6 cm)
Estate/Inventory Number
2107.68
Collection
Collection of Christopher Rothko. © Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko
References
Compton, Michael. Mark Rothko: The Seagram Mural Project. Tate Gallery Liverpool, Liverpool, UK, 1988: 13, 16n30, 18, cat 18 (color) [erroneously illustrated as cat. 18 instead of cat. 17] [reproduced upside down].
Compton, Michael. “Introduction into the Seagram Mural Project.” In Mark Rothko: Kaaba in New York, edited by Thomas Kellein. Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland, 1989: 15.
Kellein, Thomas, ed. Mark Rothko: Kaaba in New York. Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland, 1989: 15, 78 (color).
Carmean, E. A., Jr., ed. Coming to Light: Avery, Gottlieb, Rothko: Provincetown Summers, 1957–1961. Knoedler & Company, New York, 2002: 102, 59 (color).
Wick, Oliver. Mark Rothko: Works on Paper, 1930–1969. Galerie Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland, 2005: 29, 70, cat. 36 (color).
Wick, Oliver. “Do They Negate Each Other, Modern and Classical? Mark Rothko, Italy, and the Yearning for Tradition.” In Mark Rothko, edited by Oliver Wick. Palazzo delle esposizioni, Rome, 2007: 19, cat. 83 (color).
Wick, Oliver, ed. Mark Rothko. Palazzo delle esposizioni, Rome, 2007: 19, 199, cat. 83 (color).
Wick, Oliver. “Do They Negate Each Other, Modern and Classical? Mark Rothko und die Sehnsucht nach Tradition.” In Mark Rothko Retrospektive, by Hubertus Gassner et al. Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Munich, Germany, and Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany, 2008: 22, cat. 86 (color).
Boehm, Gottfried. “Das Lebendige: Rothkos Zugänge zum Bild.” In Mark Rothko Retrospektive, by Hubertus Gassner et al. Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Munich, Germany, and Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany, 2008: 183, cat. 86 (color).
Gassner, Hubertus, Christiane Lange, and Oliver Wick. Mark Rothko Retrospektive. Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Munich, Germany, and Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany, 2008: 22, 183, 204, 214, cat. 86 (color).
Borchardt-Hume, Achim, ed. Rothko: The Late Series. Tate Modern, London, 2008: 228, 139 (color).
Stewart, Jessica. “Biografie.” In Mark Rothko Retrospektive, by Hubertus Gassner et al. Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Munich, Germany, and Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany, 2008: 204, cat. 86 (color).
Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art. Mark Rothko. Sakura, Japan, 2009: 217, 106 (color).
Schüppel, Katharina Christa. “From Myth to Abstraction. Mark Rothko and the New York School 1945-1970.” In Rothko / Giotto, edited by Stefan Weppelmann and Gerhard Wolf. Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin, 2009: 109, fig. 12 (color).
Weppelmann, Stefan, and Gerhard Wolf, eds. Rothko / Giotto. Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin, 2009: 109, fig. 12 (color).
Remarks
In June 1958, Rothko accepted a commission to paint a series of canvases for the Four Seasons restaurant in the Seagram Building, New York, the skyscraper designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson and completed that year. In 1958 and 1959 Rothko painted about thirty large-scale canvases for the project, of which seven would likely have been installed had he not abandoned the project in 1959. Rothko also made six small studies—three in crayon and three in a water-based medium, likely poster paint—and five larger paintings on paper, of which this is one, that relate to Seagram canvases (see Related Works on Paper). The smaller works on paper were almost certainly made prior to the works on canvas [Dore Ashton, About Rothko (New York, 1983), 153] and explore a frieze-like scheme of architectonic forms suggestive of the framed portals that eventually manifested in the canvases. The larger works on paper were almost certainly produced following the smaller works and before or in tandem with the large-scale “sketches” on canvas for the Seagram cycle.

The design of the current work, with its vertical red portal frame on a red background, relates to a trio of Seagram mural sketches on canvas dating from 1959 (fig. 1–3). The more attenuated forms and the inversion of the palette (dark form on brighter background) of the current work as compared to the canvases, however, suggests that this and the other related works on paper might best be understood as constituting an exploratory phase of the mural work rather than one-to-one preparatory studies for the canvases themselves. The number assigned during Rothko’s inventory of 1968/1969 erroneously signifies a creation date of 1968 for this work.
[Seagram mural study]
1. Mark Rothko, Untitled (Seagram Mural Sketch), 1959, oil on canvas, 104 ¾ x 85 in., Collection of Christopher Rothko, © Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko. [Anfam 648]
[Seagram mural study]
2. Mark Rothko, Untitled (Seagram Mural sketch), 1959, oil and acrylic on canvas, 72 1/4 x 60 1/8 in., National Gallery of Art, Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc., © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko, 1985.38.2. [Anfam 649]
[Seagram mural study]
3. Mark Rothko, Untitled (Seagram Mural sketch), 1959, oil and acrylic on canvas, 71 15/16 x 60 1/16 in., National Gallery of Art, Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc., © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko, 1985.38.3. [Anfam 650]
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