Mark Rothko Painting Sells for $85.8 Million
New York’s spring auctions are expected to fetch at least $1.7 billion amid redoubled collector confidence in art values
A luminous, red rectangular abstract by Mark Rothko sold for $85.8 million on Thursday, a solid kickoff to what’s poised to be ebullient spring auctions in New York.
The seller of the 1957 work, “Brown and Blacks in Reds,” was the estate of former Goldman Sachs banker turned art dealer Robert Mnuchin, who paid $6.7 million for the work in 2003. The winning telephone bidder at Sotheby’s was anonymous.
Following last fall’s art-market turnaround, collectors have descended on New York for this weeklong series of auctions at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips feeling increasingly confident about art values, even as the broader economy remains beset by war and rising gas and food prices. The world’s leading auction houses are also entering the season feeling secure after landing several major estates, including collections owned by Agnes Gund, president emerita of the Museum of Modern Art, dealer Marian Goodman and Condé Nast publisher S.I. Newhouse.
That renewed confidence will now be tested by collectors’ willingness to splurge on trophy art. At least 11 works across these sales carry estimates of $35 million or more. At least two carry $100 million asking prices, including Jackson Pollock’s drip painting, “Number 7A, 1948,” and Constantin Brancusi’s 1913 bronze bust, “Danaïde.”
“It’s an energizing moment,” said David Galperin, a Sotheby’s specialist. “The market is really feeling buoyant, but we are only as good as the works we can get.”
Rothko, the Latvian immigrant who helped define abstract expressionism, has emerged as this season’s one-man barometer of the art market’s health. He is known for paintings that feature stacked blocks of contrasting yet complementary colors meant to elicit strong emotions. Like a mood ring, Rothko subtly chronicled his ambitions and mental health struggles through his works, which span from the 1930s to his death in 1970.
Because his signature works aren’t anchored to specific landscapes or cultures, his works have gained traction among international collectors. The trouble lies in finding Rothko’s coveted, breakthrough 1950s abstracts, as most have filtered into museum collections. Last year, only six turned up in major auctions all year long; thanks to these estates, the same number of Rothko works will go on offer during these sales that end May 21, offering a broad test of his works across several eras and at different price points.
“Brown and Blacks in Reds” likely got a boost from its palette. Rothko collectors tend to pay a premium for his canvases drenched in red—much like sports car enthusiasts—or in other cheery sunset hues. The auction record for a Rothko is his “Orange, Red, Yellow” from 1961 that sold for $86.9 million in 2012, so Sotheby’s example represents the artist’s second-highest price at auction.
During Sotheby’s $166.3 million sale of Mnuchin’s estate on Thursday, a 1949 Rothko also owned by Mnuchin, “No. 1,” sold for $20.8 million, within its $15 million to $20 million estimate. On Monday, Christie’s will ask at least $80 million for a 1964 Rothko that Gund bought directly from the artist’s studio, “No. 15 (Two Greens and Red Stripe).”
Can’t afford a multimillion-dollar Rothko? Galperin said younger collectors have recently started gravitating to his earlier surrealist works from the 1940s as well as his later works on paper showcased in recent museum exhibits, such as his retrospective at Paris’s Louis Vuitton Foundation in 2023-24 that explored the inventive ways the artist experimented before and after landing on his signature style. On Friday, Sotheby’s offerings will include Rothko’s surrealist work on paper from 1946, “The Journey.” Asking price: $300,000 or more.