Abstract: The deformation failure modes of gravity retaining walls under earthquakes are investigated by using the near-field data in Wenchuan Earthquake. It is found that the deformation failure modes of the retaining wall more closely relate with the foundation. The wall on the rock foundation mainly exhibits inclination deformation, while the wall on the soil foundation mainly shows slip deformation. Based on the Winkler foundation model, the soil mass is viewed as the combination of a set of springs and ideal rigid plasticity objects, and the relevant methods for the seismic earth pressure and the point of resultant force for gravity retaining wall under different displacement modes are proposed. The results show that the distribution of seismic earth pressure can be expressed differently under different deformation failure modes, except the slip deformation, and that the distribution of seismic active earth pressure against retaining wall is nonlinear under the rest of the deformation failure modes. The point of resultant force for the gravity retaining walls on the rock foundation is higher than that of the walls on the rock foundation. Large-scale shaking table tests for gravity retaining walls on rock foundation and soil foundation are conducted to test the proposed theory. It is indicated that the experimental results are in accordance with the theoretical ones.