Coveted Rothko From Robert Mnuchin's Collection Nets $85.8 Million In New York

New York's spring auction season began with a familiar kind of drama: a monumental Mark Rothko canvas, a deep-pocketed market, and a result that landed just below the artist's record. At Sotheby's New York on Thursday night, Brown and Blacks in Reds (1957) sold for $74 million hammer price, or $85.8 million with fees, against a $70 million to $100 million estimate.

The painting came from the collection of Robert Mnuchin, who died in December at 92, and was one of 11 lots in the Mnuchin sale. Sotheby's said every work in the group was backed by a guarantee, meaning each was assured a buyer. The collection's combined low estimate reached nearly $125 million, or roughly 38 percent of the evening's total low estimate.

At 8 feet tall, Brown and Blacks in Reds belongs to a crucial moment in Rothko's career. In 1957, the American painter Mark Rothko (1903–1970) was refining the stacked color fields that would become his most recognizable language. Sotheby's noted that the year produced only 15 large-scale works, most of which are now in museum collections. The market has long favored his red paintings, and this canvas carries a provenance that adds another layer of significance: it once belonged to Joseph E. Seagram & Sons and seems to anticipate the Seagram Murals, the 30-painting commission Rothko later abandoned for the Seagram Building's restaurant after objecting to the clientele.

The result came close to Rothko's auction record, set in 2012 when Orange, Red, Yellow (1961) sold for $86.8 million at Christie's New York. Adjusted for inflation, that figure would be about $125.9 million today, according to the Artnet Price Database.

The Mnuchin sale also included a second Rothko, No. 1 (1949), estimated at $15 million to $20 million, alongside works by Willem de Kooning, Pablo Picasso, and Franz Kline. Across Sotheby's, Christie's, and Phillips, New York's marquee May auctions are expected to bring in between $1.8 billion and $2.6 billion over the coming week, nearly double last year's totals. The Rothko result suggests the market's appetite for blue-chip postwar painting remains firmly intact.

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