Rothko and The Four Seasons: Those Sons of Bitches

Mark Rothko was commissioned to create a series of murals for the Four Seasons Restaurant before it opened in 1959 — designed by Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, one of the most elegant rooms in New York. Rothko accepted, and made his intentions clear: he wanted to create “something that will ruin the appetite of every son-of-a-bitch who ever eats in that room.”

He never got the chance. After dining at the Four Seasons and absorbing its rarefied atmosphere, Rothko was so repulsed by the place that he pulled the paintings altogether. The Seagram Murals now hang at London’s Tate Modern, Japan’s Kawamura Memorial Museum, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Rothko’s Seagram Murals at the Tate

The Tate’s copy of Black on Maroon had its own indignity in 2012, when a vandal walked up and scrawled “Vladimir Umanets, A Potential Piece of Yellowism” across it.

The Four Seasons was no artistic wasteland despite Rothko’s snub. The restaurant continuously borrowed works from MoMA to elevate its rooms. Picasso’s curtain, originally designed for the Ballets Russes production of Le Tricorne, hung between the Pool Room and the Grill Room from 1959 until 2014, when it was removed and relocated to the New York Historical Society. The restaurant itself closed in 2016.

A few firsts belong to the Four Seasons beyond the art: it pioneered the concept of a changing seasonal menu, introduced fresh mushrooms to New York dining at a time when only dried ones were used, and printed its menus in English. It was also the most expensive restaurant ever built at the time of its opening. The bar, which sat beneath a giant Richard Lippold sculpture, was among the more civilized ways to experience the room.

Location: Four Seasons Restaurant, 99 East 52nd Street, New York, NY 10022