presents
RED by John Logan
Study Guide
(Mark Rothko’s Four Seasons paintings on display in the Tate Gallery, London)
Many thanks to Bonnie Clearwater, Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami
for her assistance in assembling this Study Guide.
Mark Rothko was born Marcus Rothkowitz on September 25, 1903 in
Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian Empire (now in Latvia). In 1913, his
family emigrated to the United
States, in part to escape the
violently anti-Semitic environment
in Russia.
During Rothko’s youth he was
preoccupied with politics and social
issues. He entered Yale University
in 1921, intending to become a
labor leader, but dropped out after
two years and wandered about the
U.S. In 1925 he settled in New York
City and took up painting. Although
he studied briefly under the painter
Max Weber, he was essentially selftaught.
Rothko first worked in a realistic style that culminated in his Subway series
of the late 1930s, showing the loneliness of persons in drab urban
environments. This gave way in the early 1940s to the semi-abstract
biomorphic forms of the ritualistic Baptismal Scene (1945). By 1948,
however, he had arrived at a highly personal form of Abstract
Expressionism. Unlike many of his fellow Abstract Expressionists, Rothko
never relied on such dramatic techniques as violent brushstrokes or the
dripping and splattering of paint. Instead, his virtually gestureless paintings
achieved their effects by juxtaposing large areas of melting colors that
seemingly float parallel to the picture plane in an indeterminate,
atmospheric space.
Rothko spent the rest of his life refining this basic style, refining it to
become more complex and accurate in achieving his aims for his paintings.
He restricted his designs to two or three “soft-edged” rectangles that
nearly filled the wall-sized vertical formats like monumental abstract icons.
Despite their large size, however, his paintings derived a remarkable sense
of intimacy from the play of nuances within local color.
Following the Seagram Building commission, Rothko worked intermittently
from 1958 to 1966 on a series of 14 immense canvases (the largest was
about 11 x 15 feet) commissioned for a nondenominational chapel in
Houston, Texas, called, after his death, the Rothko Chapel. These paintings
were virtual monochromes of darkly glowing browns, maroons, reds, and
blacks. Their somber intensity reveals the deep mysticism of Rothko's later
years. Plagued by ill health and depression, he committed suicide on
February 25, 1970.
After his death, the execution of Rothko's will provoked one of the most
spectacular and complex court cases in the history of modern art, lasting
for 11 years (1972–82). The dispute regarded the placement of 798
paintings, as well as many sketches and drawings. His daughter, Kate
Rothko, accused the executors of the estate and the owner of
Marlborough Galleries in New York City of conspiracy and conflict of
interest in selling the works—in effect, of enriching themselves. The courts
decided against the executors and Lloyd, who were heavily fined. Lloyd
was tried separately and convicted on criminal charges of tampering with
evidence. In 1979 a new board of the Mark Rothko Foundation was
established, and all the works in the estate were divided between the
artist's two children and the Foundation. After the case was settled,
Bonnie Clearwater, a young art historian and current Executive Director
and Chief Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami,
was hired as curator. In 1984 the Foundation's share of works was
distributed to 19 museums in the United States, Great Britain, The
Netherlands, Denmark, and Israel; the best and the largest proportion
went to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
The Seagram Building is a
skyscraper, located at 375 Park
Avenue, between 52nd Street
and 53rd Street in Midtown
Manhattan, New York City. It
was designed by Ludwig Mies
van der Rohe, in collaboration
with Philip Johnson. The building
stands 516 feet tall with 38
stories, and was completed in
1958. It stands as one of the
finest examples of the
functionalist aesthetic and a
masterpiece of corporate
modernism. The Seagram
Building, and the International
style in which it was built, had
enormous influences on
American architecture. On completion, the construction costs of Seagram
made it the world's most expensive skyscraper at the time, due to the use
of expensive quality materials and lavish interior decoration.
The Four Seasons is a restaurant in New York City located in the Seagram
Building. Opened in 1959, the Four Seasons is associated with a number of
milestone firsts in the hospitality industry. The Four Seasons is credited
with introducing the idea of seasonally-changing menus to America. It was
the first destination restaurant to print its menus in English. It was the first
US restaurant to serve American wine.
The restaurant's interior, which was designed by the building's architects
Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, has remained almost unchanged
since construction in 1959. The restaurant was designated by the New York
City Landmarks Preservation Commission as an interior landmark in 1989.
From 1975 until 1985
four paintings by Ronnie
Landfield from the
collection of Philip
Johnson were installed
on the wall that had
been initially planned
for the Mark Rothko
commission. In 1985 the
artist James Rosenquist
was commissioned to install a permanent mural on the wall; the Landfield
paintings were returned to Philip Johnson.
Other art in the Four Seasons includes a major Richard Lippold sculpture is
installed in the Front Bar, which hangs from the ceiling and the large
curtain designed by Pablo Picasso for the Ballets Russes ballet Le Tricorne
(1919), which has been hung between the Grill Room and the Pool Room
since the restaurant opened. The continuously revolving exhibitions in the
dining rooms and the 52nd Street entrance walls which have included
works by Joan Miró,
Ronnie Landfield,
and Richard
Anuszkiewicz, and
paintings by Frank
Stella.
Artists Mentioned in Red
(in order of mention)
Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 – August 11, 1956) was an influential
American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist
movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and
notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile
personality, and struggled with alcoholism for most of his life.
Rembrandt van Rijn (July 1, 1606 – October 4, 1669) was a Dutch painter
and etcher. He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and
printmakers in
European art
history and the
most important in
Dutch history. His
contributions to art
came in a period
that historians call
the Dutch Golden
Age. Having
achieved youthful
success as a
Belsazar's Feast by Rembrandt
portrait painter, his
later years were
marked by personal tragedy and financial hardships. Yet his etchings and
paintings were popular throughout his lifetime, his reputation as an artist
remained high, and for twenty years he taught many important Dutch
painters. Rembrandt's greatest creative triumphs are exemplified
especially in his portraits of his contemporaries, self-portraits and
illustrations of scenes from the Bible. Because of his empathy for the
human condition, he has been called "one of the great prophets of
civilization."
Joseph Mallord William Turner (April 23, 1775 – December 19, 1851) was
an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolorist and printmaker.
Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now
regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence
rivaling history painting. Although renowned for his oil paintings, Turner is
also one of the greatest masters of British watercolor landscape painting.
He is commonly known as "the painter of light" and his work regarded as a
Romantic preface to Impressionism.
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (October 25, 1881 – April 8, 1973) was a Spanish
painter, draughtsman, and sculptor who lived most of his life in France. He
is widely known for co-founding the Cubist movement and for the wide
variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most
famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) and
Guernica (1937), a portrayal of the German bombing of Guernica during
the Spanish Civil War. Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in
his early years, painting in a realistic manner through his childhood and
adolescence; during the first decade of the 20th century his style changed
as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. His
revolutionary artistic accomplishments brought him universal renown and
immense fortune, making him one of the best-known figures in 20th
century art.
Salvador Dalí (May 11, 1904 – January 23, 1989) was a prominent Spanish
Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain. Dalí was a
skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his
surrealist work. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of
Renaissance masters. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory,
was completed in 1931. Dalí's expansive artistic repertoire includes film,
sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a
variety of media. Dalí was highly imaginative, and also had an affinity for
partaking in unusual and grandiose behavior. His eccentric manner and
attention-grabbing public actions sometimes drew more attention than his
artwork to the dismay of those who held his work in high esteem and to
the irritation of his critics.
important as a portrait artist. In addition to numerous renditions of scenes
of historical and cultural significance, he painted scores of portraits of the
Spanish royal family, other notable European figures, and commoners,
culminating in the production of his masterpiece Las Meninas (1656)
Willem de Kooning (April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch
American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the
Netherlands. In the post-World War II era, de Kooning painted in a style
that came to be referred to as Abstract expressionism or Action Painting,
and was part of a group of artists that came to be known as the New York
School.
Michelangelo Merisi da
Caravaggio (September 29,
1571 – July 18, 1610), more
commonly known only as
Caravaggio, was an Italian
artist active in Rome, Naples,
Malta, and Sicily between
1593 and 1610. His paintings,
which combine a realistic
observation of the human
state, both physical and
emotional, with a dramatic
use of lighting, had a
formative influence on the
Baroque school of painting.
Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) American painter,
printmaker and editor. He was one of the youngest of the New York School
(a phrase he coined). On Motherwell's death, Clement Greenberg, the
great champion of the New York School, left in little doubt his esteem for
the artist, commenting that, "although he is underrated today, in my
opinion he was the very best of the Abstract Expressionist painters.”
Barnett Newman (January 29, 1905 – July 4, 1970) was an American artist.
He is seen as one of the major figures in abstract expressionism and one of
the foremost of the color field painters.
Édouard Manet (January 23, 1832 – April 30, 1883) was a French painter.
One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he
was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. His
early masterworks, The Luncheon on the Grass (Le déjeuner sur l'herbe)
and Olympia, engendered great controversy and served as rallying points
for the young painters who would create Impressionism. Today, these are
considered watershed paintings that mark the genesis of modern art.
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (June 6, 1599 – August 6, 1660) was
a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV.
He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period,
The Conversion of Saul by Caravaggio
Henri Matisse (December 31, 1869 – November 3, 1954) was a French
artist, known for his use of color and his fluid and original draftsmanship.
He was a draftsman,
printmaker, and
sculptor, but is known
primarily as a painter.
Matisse is commonly
regarded, along with
Picasso and Marcel
Duchamp, as one of
the three artists who
helped to define the
revolutionary
developments in the
plastic arts in the
The Red Studio (L’Atelier Rouge) by Matisse
opening decades of
the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting and
sculpture. His mastery of the expressive language of color and drawing,
displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him
recognition as a leading figure in modern art.
Vincent Willem van Gogh (March 30, 1853 – July 29, 1890) was a Dutch
post-Impressionist painter whose work, notable for its rough beauty,
emotional honesty, and bold color, had a far-reaching influence on 20thcentury art. After years of painful anxiety and frequent bouts of mental
illness, he died at the age of 37 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His
work was then known to only a handful of people and appreciated by
fewer still. Today, he is widely revered and one of the most famous artists
in the world.
Jasper Johns, Jr. (born May 15, 1930) is an American contemporary artist
who works primarily in painting and printmaking.
Frank Stella (born May 12, 1936) is an American painter and printmaker.
He is a significant figure in minimalism and post-painterly abstraction.
Robert Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American
artist who came to prominence in the 1950s. He is well-known for his
"Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects
were employed in innovative combinations.
Roy Lichtenstein (October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997) was a
prominent American pop artist. His work defined the basic premise of pop
art better than any other through parody. Favoring the old-fashioned
comic strip as subject matter, Lichtenstein produced hard-edged, precise
compositions that documented while it parodied often in a tongue-incheek humorous manner.
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (March 6, 1475 – February
18, 1564), commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance
painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer. Despite making few forays
beyond the arts, his versatility in the disciplines he took up was of such a
high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the
archetypal Renaissance man, along with fellow Italian Leonardo da Vinci.
***
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Logan received the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Drama
League awards for his play Red. He is the author of more than a dozen
other plays, including Never the Sinner and Hauptmann. Logan’s
screenplays include Any Given Sunday and the television movie RKO 281,
and Gladiator, for which he received an Academy Award nomination in
2000. He gained another nomination for 2004's The Aviator, starring
Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Martin Scorsese. Other notable films
written by Logan include Star Trek: Nemesis, The Time Machine, The Last
Samurai, and the Tim Burton-directed musical, Sweeney Todd: The Demon
Barber of Fleet Street, for which he won a Golden Globe Award.