Red on Maroon
- Artist: Mark Rothko
- Date: 1959
- Medium: Oil paint, acrylic paint and glue on canvas
- Dimensions: support: 1829 x 4572 x 43 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
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About this artwork
This is “Red on Maroon” by Mark Rothko, completed in 1959. It was one of a series of murals he painted for the Four Seasons restaurant in New York’s Seagram Building. Rothko built a scaffold in his studio to match the dining room’s scale, so the work could hang high above a doorway. He said the paintings “are involved with the scale of human feelings, the human drama” and the mood of this piece is darker than his earlier work – rich maroon, deep red and black dominate the canvas. Visually, a large crimson rectangle sits inside a darker maroon block, the edges blurring to suggest a window‑like frame. The technique mixes oil, acrylic and glue on canvas, with thin washes that create a flickering, almost moving surface. The piece was donated to the collection in 1969 after Rothko withdrew from the commission, and it now sits in the Rothko Room as a contemplative reminder of the artist’s late series.
See it in person
Red 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.
