Rothko's $85.7M Leads Sotheby's Mnuchin Sale

Sotheby's launched New York's May auction season with a highly successful sale featuring pieces from Robert Mnuchin's collection. The highlight was Mark Rothko's 'Brown and Blacks in Reds' (1957), which fetched $85.78 million, including fees, making it the second-highest auction price for a Rothko. This 7-foot painting narrowly missed the artist's record of $89.6 million achieved at Christie's in 2012. Mnuchin, who passed away last December, owned it for over 20 years, having purchased it for $6 million in 2003—a remarkable increase of more than 12 times. The total sale reached $166.3 million, surpassing the estimated range of $124.9–$183.2 million. Other notable sales included Rothko's 'No. 1' (1949) at $20.8 million and Willem de Kooning's 'Untitled XLIII' (1983) at $12.41 million. Following this, Sotheby's Now and Contemporary Evening auction featured Jean-Michel Basquiat's 'Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown)' (1983), which sold for $52.7 million, alongside Willem de Kooning's 'Untitled III' (1975) debuting at $26 million and Andy Warhol's portrait of Brigitte Bardot (1974) from the Gunter Sachs Collection, which went for $24.83 million against an estimate of $14–18 million. The spring auction series in New York will continue next week at Christie's and Phillips, featuring another Rothko and Roy Lichtenstein's 'Anxious Girl' (1964), estimated at $40–60 million.