Rothko Rooms

I'm not an abstract artist, I'm not interested in the relationship of colour or form or anything else. I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions - tragedy, ecstasy, doom and so on…The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience as I had when I painted them.
Mark Rothko

Filmed on both sides of the Atlantic, Rothko’s work constantly fills the screen, interspersed with penetrating contributions from his daughter, Kate, his son, Christopher, and insightful comments from a wide range of friends, artists, art historians, collectors and curators. The focus of the documentary is on Rothko’s demands for the perfect setting for the showing of his work, an ideal he pursued throughout his creative life. This is typified by the controversial story of his iconic Seagram Murals. One of the murals’ commissioners, architect Philip Johnson, is among those who explain why Rothko refused to allow these works to hang in their intended venue, the exclusive Four Seasons restaurant in Seagram building on New York’s Park Avenue.