“One day in autumn 1959, the critic and historian Irving Sandler met him on 10th Street in New York, and Rothko announced that he had just completed the series of works commissioned to hang in the Four Seasons Restaurant, allegedly the most expensive ever opened. He invited Sandler to see the pictures in his studio. “It was a cavernous space in which he had built a mock-up of the restaurant in order to paint the murals in situ, as it were. We sat silent in the midst of these sombre paintings. At one point he said: ‘Can you imagine rich people eating dinner surrounded by this work?’” Sandler confessed that he couldn’t, and Rothko replied that he couldn’t, either, and that he had returned the restaurant’s advance - a large sum he could ill-afford. Later, Rothko donated a large group of these works to the Tate.

In Rothko’s view, his paintings were not only far too serious to act as a backdrop to business lunches; they were more significant than almost anything, since they were concerned with the most profound questions of existence.”

- From From “The Mysterious Tragedy at the Heart of Rothko’s Tranquil Masterpiece” by Martin Gayford.  Published by the Telegraph in 2008