From Paris to Cornwall: Mark Rothko’s Seagram Murals are going on show at Tate St Ives

Mark Rothko, Black on Maroon (1959)
Tate. © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko ARS, NYand DACS, London
Mark Rothko’s celebrated Seagram Murals are on the move again. Five of the abstract works will go on show at Tate St Ives in Cornwall, UK next month (25 May-5 January 2025) in a one-room display. “Presented, as the artist intended, in a single space with reduced light, these works offer a meditative conclusion to the exhibitions and displays at Tate St Ives,” says a Tate statement.
Nine Seagram Murals—Tate’s entire Rothko Room—were shown in the large Rothko retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, which closed earlier this week. The room where the Rothkos used to be at Tate Modern is currently hosting a display of Joan Mitchell works on loan from the Fondation Louis Vuitton. The four Rothkos not travelling to Cornwall will be returning to Tate, with plans to put them back on show.
The murals were commissioned in 1958 for the Four Seasons restaurant in New York’s Seagram building. But Rothko pulled out of the project, saying the restaurant was “a place where the richest bastards of New York will come to feed and show off”. Visiting St Ives played a part in his decision.
According to a Tate statement, Rothko took a break from working on the murals to travel to Europe with his family in 1959, taking in the Cornish seaside resort. In St Ives he also met artists such as Terry Frost and Patrick Heron.
According to the Independent, Rothko’s visit “came at the end of a European holiday and revolved around social occasions: an evening drink with [the artist] Peter Lanyon at The Tinners Arms, a party, drinks with Heron, lunch with Frost and [fellow artist] Paul Feiler”. Crucially, “upon his return to the United States, Rothko decided that the [Seagram] restaurant would not be an appropriate location for his paintings. He donated nine of them to Tate in 1969,” Tate says.
Rothko is having a moment in the UK. The string ensemble Manchester Collective will present a concert inspired by Rothko’s works at the Southbank Centre in London 5 May (the project will also tour to Manchester on 10 May and also to Belgium and Germany). The show includes Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel composition as well as new pieces from three contemporary composers—Edmund Finnis, Isobel Waller-Bridge and Katherine Balch—who have created new works inspired by his art.

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