Mark Rothko’s final paintings were a deliberate anti-capitalist sabotage
Some people gaze up at a Mark Rothko painting and see heaven, hell and the human comedy depicted with a ferocity that can cause knees to quake. Others see an IKEA colour chart crafted by a macabre toddler with an eyewatering price tag and think, ‘Yeah, the human comedy indeed’. And if Rothko had his way, diners at the Four Seasons restaurant in New York City would’ve looked upon his mighty works and suddenly felt a little queasy about finishing their caviar.
On February 25th, 1970, Rothko’s final works, nine Seagram murals, arrived at the Tate Gallery in London. As the crimson-coloured, bloody paintings were being unboxed, news reached the gallery that their creator had just been found dead. Thus, tragically, these paintings would become his final legacy, and their intent showcases the disposition of Rothko at the time he painted them.
The name Seagram denotes the building where they were eventually intended to hang. The Seagram building in New York was the most groundbreaking skyscraper of the time. So, Philip Johnson commissioned the hot-shot Rothko to create artwork for the building’s flagship Four Seasons restaurant. In essence, this high-rise dining represented the capitalist pinnacle, which was something Rothko disagreed with.
So, rather than turn down the commission, he accepted it but set about creating a sabotage with the bounty he had been afforded. Prior to their creation, Rothko told Harper’s Magazine, “I accepted this assignment as a challenge, with strictly malicious intentions. I hope to paint something that will ruin the appetite of every son of a bitch who ever eats in that room.”
His commission contract also stipulated that at any point, Rothko could return his fee to Johnson and retrieve his work. When he later dined in the restaurant, he commented, “Anybody who will eat that kind of food for those kind of prices will never look at a painting of mine.” So, he had them taken down and shipped to the Tate Gallery in London, where he thought they would be appreciated in less of an American Psycho manner.
Alas, there is an irony to the whole tale that has continued to unfurl over the years, for it was capitalism’s battle with communism in a political sense that seemingly launched him to the sort of position where he could hand back millions to a restaurant in the sky in the first place.
This much is proven: The Congress for Cultural Freedom was an anti-communist advocacy group founded in 1950. This group promoted American ideals. It promoted Rothko exhibitions as part of those ideals. This group was also a funded offshoot of the CIA. Thus, it has been argued that the CIA purposefully elevated his art both in terms of value and acclaim as a way to diminish socialist realism.
In other words, those daft Commies are still doling out drab pictures of pleasant panoramas for pennies, whereas Rothko and co were quite literally extolling the freedom of the human soul on canvas and their bright new world deserved to be handsomely rewarded. This was the system of innovation and progress, and art was a vital cog in the engine.
So, you can look at the Seagrams as Rothko not getting the joke or the artist having the last laugh. Either way, it’s bittersweet because, in the end, he tragically bemoaned that he was forever misunderstood.
