Mark Rothko’s “Orange, Red, Yellow” sold for $86,882,500.
A 1961 Rothko sold for nearly $87 million as contemporary art smashed records at Christie’s in New York last night. The auction, brimful of fresh to the market work by the most sought after artists, brought in $388.488 million over a high estimate of $329 million. Contemporary art reasserted its global position as the most popular selling category attracting the wealthiest collectors.
Mark Rothko’s “Orange, Red, Yellow” sold for a stunning $86,882,500, beating the previous record set by the artist at Sotheby’s in 2007 by more than $15 million. It was the highest price ever for a contemporary artwork, beating the $86.3 million set by Francis Bacon at Sotheby’s in 2008. There were records too for artists like Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, Alexander Calder, Gerhard Richter and Yves Klein.
Yves Klein’s FC-1 sold for $36,482,500, Pollock’s “Number 28, 1951” made $23,042,500, Barnett Newman’s “Onement V” made $22,482,500, Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild (798-3) made $21,810,500 and Alexander Calder’s stabile “Lily of Force” from 1945 made $18,562,500. In all 14 new world auction records were set, nine works sold above $10 million and 41 works made over $1 million.
The Rothko was one of 13 stellar works from the Pincus Collection. With a combined total of $174,944,500 this now ranks as the most expensive collection of Post-War and Contemporary art ever offered at auction. David and Geraldine Pincus, prominent Philadelphia collectors and philanthropists, assembled it over a lifetime.
For an explanation of how Yves Klein created FC 1 without brushes and without ever directly touching the surface of the work see the video post on antiquesandartireland.com for May 1 and the post for April 5, 2012.