Mark Rothko’s former house and studio in Manhattan’s Lenox Hill, the place he created the work for his famend Rothko Chapel in Texas, is again in the marketplace.
Sotheby’s Realty is asking $9.5 million for the red-brick transformed carriage home at 157 East 69th Avenue, in line with a list. Inbuilt 1884 by German-American architect William Schickel, the three-story landmarked Romanesque Revival constructing initially served as a personal equestrian coaching area earlier than it turned Rothko’s residence studio throughout the peak of his artistic output within the Sixties.
Mark Rothko’s former residence in Lenox Hill (picture Maya Pontone/Hyperallergic)
The artist created quite a few works within the area, marked by its pure gentle and dramatic atrium, together with the sequence of darkish, meditative canvases that presently reside within the non-denominational Rothko Chapel based in Houston by John and Dominique de Menil. Final yr, three of the work within the chapel had been broken by roof leaks that occurred throughout Hurricane Beryl.
“The [Lenox Hill] studio had a skylight, and Rothko used a pulley system to work on the large-scale canvases in that space,” Will Davison, a spokesperson for the Rothko Chapel, informed Hyperallergic. The constructing’s atrium parts would later encourage the artist to include a skylight into the construction.
“The studio was chosen to model the chapel, which in turn was modeled on the studio,” the artist’s son Christopher Rothko informed PaperCity Journal in 2015.
Rothko Chapel inside and benches (© Paul Hester; courtesy Rothko Chapel)
Rothko additionally created his Untitled (Black on Gray) (1969–70) sequence within the area, his final physique of labor earlier than his loss of life by suicide in 1970 on the age of 66. Visible expressions of the artist’s psychological and bodily state on the time, the work are distinguished by their desolate composition and somber palettes.
The 69th Avenue property, which has been in the marketplace twice since 2023, is presently divided into two items, one in all which is occupied by the Urasenke Chanoyu Heart, a conventional Japanese tea nonprofit that operates on the bottom flooring. The Sotheby’s itemizing solely applies to the personal residence, however a buyout clause that’s due in 12 years per a typical tenant settlement may permit a purchaser to achieve full possession, Elle Decor reported.
Mark Rothko in his studio with reproduction chapel partitions development (© 1964 Hans Namuth, picture by Hans Namuth; courtesy the Property of Mark Rothko)
The property contains a glass-enclosed terrace, a number of wood-burning fireplaces, and an genuine tea room. (picture by Yale Wagner, courtesy Sotheby’s Worldwide Realty)
The property, which is split into two components, features a landscaped rooftop terrace. (picture by Yale Wagner, courtesy Sotheby’s Worldwide Realty)
The residence is the place the painter made a big output of labor, together with a few of his closing work. (picture by Yale Wagner, courtesy Sotheby’s Worldwide Realty)
