Black on Maroon
- Artist: Mark Rothko
- Date: 1958
- Medium: Oil paint, acrylic paint, glue tempera and pigment on canvas
- Dimensions: support: 2667 x 3812 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is “Black on Maroon” by Mark Rothko. Created in 1958, it’s a huge canvas – about 2.7 m by 3.8 m – that Rothko painted in his characteristic colour‑field style. The canvas is first covered with a deep maroon made from powdered pigments mixed into rabbit‑skin glue. Over that he layers a large block of black, and then two slimmer maroon rectangles that look like a window frame. The edges of the black feather into the maroon, creating a subtle, almost breathing relationship between the two tones.
Rothko painted this as part of a series meant for the Four Seasons restaurant in the Seagram Building, but he later felt the setting was wrong for the work’s dark, contemplative mood. He said it made him feel “trapped in a room where all the doors and windows are bricked up.” So he gave the paintings to Tate instead. The piece, now hanging in a quiet space, invites you to sit, breathe, and let the muted colours soak in.
See it in person
Black on Maroon is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
