Which series of paintings did Mark Rothko create for the Seagram Building?

Mark Rothko created the Seagram Murals for the Seagram Building’s Four Seasons restaurant.

Rothko received the commission in 1958, after Joseph E. Seagram and Sons completed the Seagram Building on Park Avenue in Manhattan. The skyscraper was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, and its luxurious restaurant was intended to display large-scale modern art.

Rothko produced more than thirty dark, wine-red, brown, and black paintings between 1958 and 1959, even though the restaurant had space for only a small selection. He became dissatisfied with the setting and withdrew from the commission in 1960, returning the payment rather than allowing the works to function as decoration for wealthy diners.

The Seagram Murals are not the same as Rothko’s Rothko Chapel paintings, which were made for a Houston chapel. Today, works from the Seagram project are distributed among institutions including Tate Modern in London and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.