4. A Picasso-Created Stage Curtain Once Decorated the Building

Picasso’s “Le Tricorne” on display at the Four Seasons.

Lambert and the planners struggled to find an artist to paint murals for the Four Seasons. In 1958 she initially hired Mark Rothko to do this, but he backed out due to resentment of the restaurant’s high-class connotations.

Lambert initially met Picasso for lunch at his Cannes studio, and he eventually gave her the 20 square foot “Le Tricorne,” a stage curtain he made in 1919 for the Ballets Russes. It was gifted to the New York Landmarks Conservancy and after significant controversy about the preservation of the curtainit is now displayed at the New York Historical Society.