“He was always really obsessed with the setting of his works and their presentation,” says Grunenberg.
“There was a degree of paranoia there but his pieces are really quite subtle and do work incredibly well in a particular setting.”
The Tate director, whose first visit to Liverpool was to see the Rothko murals in 1988, studied the works for his Masters degree.
He spent hours scrutinising the tiny models and miniature versions of the paintings that the artist created to figure out the best way of hanging the paintings.
“A lot of people including myself have spent a lot of time trying to work out exactly what he wanted,” says Grunenberg. “It’s very difficult to tell.”
MARK ROTHKO’S Seagram Murals are on display at Tate Liverpool until March 21, 2010.
