This room contains a group of abstract paintings made by Mark Rothko in the late 1950s. People have strongly contrasting opinions about this room! Some visitors love the room and stay for a long time, sometimes sitting quietly and almost using the artworks as a space for meditation; others can’t wait to leave the room. We suggest you:

• Use this work as the third or final artwork in your gallery visit when your group has had time to focus on other artworks and share ideas.
• Avoid reading the wall text.
• Don’t give biographical information about the artist prior to looking at this work.
• Use the below word game to help your group find their own responses.

Word and Atmosphere Actvity

In this activity the group links word cards to the artworks on display. In previous workshops we have used word cards which relate to the atmosphere in the room. We suggest you visit the room before you bring your group to decide if the activity is suitable for your group, for example, if it suits their standard of literacy.

Word Cards:

The following examples are words that work well for this activity and can be printed in a convenient format for you to use in the gallery from the PDF document.

Activity:

Before entering the room, ask people to work in pairs. Distribute one or two word cards to each pair. Tell everyone that when they enter the room their task is to discuss if the word fits the whole room, or only one work, or not at all.

• Give the group about five minutes to explore the room and try out the word clues.
• Finish by discussing all the word cards as a whole group.
• Discussing the background of these works:

After the group discussion you could give more information about these paintings. Rothko was commissioned to make them for the Four Seasons restaurant, in the Seagram building in New York City. When he finished the paintings he decided they were not suitable for the restaurant and gave them to the Tate Gallery. He felt that the mood and atmosphere of a smart, busy restaurant was not suitable for what he had intended to express in these works.

What does your group think about the fact that these paintings were originally intended for a New York restaurant?

Other artworks which can be used in support of this activity:

• Material Gestures on Level 3 explores the way artists use media and technique through a range of physical gestures. Compare the way Rothko and his contemporaries Jackson Pollock and Philip Guston handle paint and use the properties of colour.
• Discuss as a group the idea of personal or internal landscapes of the imagination. This links with the meditative quality that many people experience with when looking at Rothko’s works. Follow this by visiting the Poetry and Dreams wing on the other side of level 3. In particular explore the area 'Surrealism and beyond'.

Do these works have anything in common with Rothko's work?
Why do you think Mark Rothko's works are hung in the the Material Gestures wing?

Linking your own projects to Mark Rothko's work:

• This room can be a great resource for a writing project. If the group decides the words suggested here don’t fit with their opinions about the artworks, ask them to choose which words would fit better, and to perhaps write a sentence or a short poem that includes these words.
• If you are working to extend literacy skills in your group, share the writing and reading tasks and adapt the chosen words to suit your group, or use the group’s own words and you can be the scribe.
• We have found that regardless of whether the group write themselves or others scribe for them, this room provides many opportunities for discussions and poetic descriptions of mood, weather and favourite places. If these associations are noted while in the gallery, they can then be developed further back at your own workplace.