{"id":1936477,"date":"2026-05-15T01:10:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T22:10:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1936477"},"modified":"2026-05-15T01:10:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T22:10:34","slug":"sothebys-389-3-m-contemporary-art-sale-led-by-85-8-m-rothko","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1936477","title":{"rendered":"Sotheby’s $389.3 M. Contemporary Art Sale Led by $85.8 M. Rothko"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/SOTHEBYS2026_0514_182642-2431_ALIVE.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n

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\n\tAt its Madison Avenue headquarters, Sotheby\u2019s kicked off the May auction season early, smack in the middle of the opening of art fairs all around Manhattan, with a solid if unexciting$433.1 million sale of modern and contemporary art, led by an $85.8 million canvas by Mark Rothko. Major auctions at Christie\u2019s and Phillips will follow next week. The equivalent sale last year tallied just $186.1 million.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe sale was robust, and it felt authentic,\u201d said New York adviser Laura Paulson as she exited the sale room partway through the evening.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was a good sale,\u201d said adviser Jacob King after unsuccessfully bidding on a Warhol. \u201cNot particularly exciting, but good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe sale opened with 11 works from the estate of legendary New York dealer Robert Mnuchin, who died last year at 92, and his wife Adriana. The group was estimated to sell for in excess of $130 million. The house guaranteed the seller an undisclosed price for the group of works, which included pieces by Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Pablo Picasso, and other market stalwarts. The 11 works rang up at a total of $166.3 million with fees, with all works finding buyers.<\/p>\n

\n\tLeading that group was Rothko\u2019s Abstract Expressionist canvas Brown and Blacks in Reds <\/em>(1957), which stands over 7 feet high and was estimated at $70 million to $100 million. The painting had been in the collection of alcoholic beverage tycoon Joseph E. Seagram until Mnuchin bought it at Christie\u2019s New York in 2003 for just $6.7 million. It was poised to exceed his existing record of $86.9 million, paid for Orange, Red, Yellow <\/em>(1961) at Christie\u2019s New York in 2012, though it just barely didn\u2019t reach that figure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Mark Rothko, Brown and Blacks in Reds<\/em>, 1957.<\/span>Courtesy Sotheby\u2019s<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Brown and Blacks in Reds<\/em> ended up hammering for $74 million, though with fees included, the value rose to $85.8 million, making it the second-most expensive Rothko ever to sell publicly at auction. (All figures in this report include buyer\u2019s premium, except when otherwise noted.) After the hammer came down on the Rothko, people in the room applauded.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlso included in the Mnuchin haul was another Rothko, his No. 1 <\/em>(1949), estimated at up to $20 million. It came to auction as recently as 2017 at Christie\u2019s London, when it fetched $13 million. With premium fees included, the painting sold for a notch above its high estimate, at $20.8 million, meaning that it accrued $7 million in value in less than a decade.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 11-lot sale was a brief affair, lasting just over a half hour and leaving enough time for a short break before the contemporary art auction. Most artworks sold for amounts within or above their estimates, and many sold quickly. The exception was an untitled Willem de Kooning abstraction from 1970 that hammered at $8.8 million after four and a half minutes of bidding, earning a round of applause. With premium fees, that figure rose to $10.8 million. That sum was more than $4 million above the work\u2019s high estimate.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe night then proceeded to a 90-minute, 40-lot sale of contemporary art that totaled $266.8 million on after one lot was withdrawn before the sale.<\/p>\n

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Jean-Michel Basquiat, Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown)<\/em>, 1983.<\/span>Courtesy Sotheby\u2019s<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tLeading the sale was Jean-Michel Basquiat\u2019s seven-foot-tall 1983 painting Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown)<\/em>, tagged at in excess of $45 million. It last came to market in 2013, at Christie\u2019s London, where an unnamed buyer snagged it for $14.6 million. ARTnews <\/em>previously reported that French art dealer John Sayegh-Belchatowski was the buyer; Sotheby\u2019s describes it only as coming from \u201ca distinguished collection.\u201d After very thin bidding in the room, it hammered at $45.3 million, selling for $52.7 million with the house\u2019s fees. That makes it the fifth-most expensive Basquiat ever to sell at public auction.<\/p>\n

\n\tWillem de Kooning\u2019s Untitled III <\/em>(1975) had been off the market for two decades; coming to auction for the first time, it was estimated at $25 million to $35 million. The 7-foot-high canvas was guaranteed to sell by the house but barely managed to meet its low estimate with fees, selling for $26 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAndy Warhol\u2019s Brigitte Bardot <\/em>(1974) was tagged at $14 million to $18 million. Another Warhol painting featuring the late French actress was sold in November of last year sold for $16.7 million on Lo\u00efc Gouzer\u2019s Fair Warning platform, and this one went for even more. Created for Gunter Sachs, Bardot\u2019s ex-husband, and showing the movie star with bright red lips in an image dominated by bright green, it exceeded its estimate to ring up for $24.8 million with fees following five minutes of passionate bidding.<\/p>\n

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Andy Warhol, Brigitte Bardot<\/em>, 1974.<\/span>Courtesy Sotheby\u2019s<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tAnother Rothko, an untitled1969 painting defined by large fields of black rimmed by a purple border, had been off the market since the seller bought it in 2000. It hammered for its $15 million high estimate to sell for $16.5 million. It came from the collection of Jean and Terry de Gunzburg, as did Lucio Fontana\u2019s Concetto spaziale, Il cielo di Venezia <\/em>(1961). The de Gunzburgs bought the 5-foot-square Fontana canvas at Sotheby\u2019s London in 2002 for \u00a31.4 million ($2.1 million). It hammered at its $15 million high estimate to sell for $16.4 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tRoy Lichtenstein\u2019s Half Face with Collar <\/em>(1963), estimated at $10 million to $15 million, has kicked around in the collections of legendary dealers Ileana Sonnabend, Gian Enzo Sperone, and Larry Gagosian. The house guaranteed the unnamed seller an undisclosed price; it squeaked by its low estimate and sold for just shy of $13 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAgnes Martin\u2019s Untitled #10 <\/em>(1981), a six-foot-square abstraction in white naked by stripes in pale colors, was estimated at $7 million to $10 million. The house guaranteed the unnamed seller an undisclosed price; it hammered for just $7.2 million to fetch $8.9 million with fees.<\/p>\n

\n\tMartin was not the only female postwar painter whose work performed well tonight. Joan Mitchell\u2019s Loom II<\/em> (1976), a blue abstraction produced in studio in the French commune of V\u00e9theuil, returned to auction on Thursday for the second time in the past two decades. In 2013, at Christie\u2019s, it sold for a hair over $1 million. Tonight, at Sotheby\u2019s, it sold for $7.8 million, in a testament to just how far the Mitchell market has come.<\/p>\n

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Ding Shilun, Three Princes<\/em>, 2022.<\/span>Courtesy Sotheby\u2019s<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tEmerging artists, who are part of a market category frequently termed \u201cultra-contemporary\u201d by the major auction houses, fared well at Sotheby\u2019s. There has been significant contraction in this area of the market in recent years\u2014the New York Times<\/em> reported that the number of ultra-contemporary works was three quarters the amount of what was had four years ago, when the sector was red hot. But the Sotheby\u2019s sale suggested that the ultra-contemporary market had not died out completely.<\/p>\n

\n\tLot 1 was a painting by Ding Shilun (b. 1998), a Chinese painter whose market is fast rising. Conservatively pegged with a $50,000\u2013$70,000 estimate, his Three Princes<\/em> (2022) ended up selling for $358,400 with fees. That was more than two times his record, which was set at Phillips in London last year, where one of his paintings sold for the equivalent of $149,600. It was not a bad showing for an artist who has never had a New York solo show.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlso selling wildly above estimate was Lot 2, Leaves carpet<\/em> (2017), by Yu Nishimura (b. 1982), estimated at up to $180,000 but selling for $998,400 after a lengthy and heated contest. That beat the artist\u2019s record of $711,200, also established at Sotheby\u2019s New York, in 2025, for the artist\u2019s Thicket <\/em>(2020), multiples of its $120,000 high estimate. (It helps that he joined David Zwirner, one of the world\u2019s biggest galleries, that year, too.)<\/p>\n

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Florian Krewer, night hunters<\/em>, 2022.<\/span>Courtesy Sotheby\u2019s<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tJoseph Yaeger (b. 1986), an American painter, continued his market ascent, with his 2021 painting The Euphemism<\/em> selling for $320,000, re-setting his auction record of $265,700. And Florian Krewer (b. 1986), a German painter making his marquee New York auction debut, also performed strongly. In a bid of confidence, the house had given his moody 2022 painting night hunters<\/em>, featuring a group of mysterious animals staring into a green ocean, a $180,000 estimate\u2014more than three times as much as his record of $52,500, set at Phillips in London last year. The painting ended up selling for $256,000, nearly quintupling that result.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/market\/sothebys-may-2026-new-york-contemporary-art-rothko-mnuchin-1234785732\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/SOTHEBYS2026_0514_182642-2431_ALIVE.jpg?w=1024″] At its Madison Avenue headquarters, Sotheby\u2019s kicked off the May auction season early, smack in the middle of the opening of art fairs all around Manhattan, with a solid if unexciting$433.1 million sale of modern and contemporary art, led by an $85.8 million canvas by Mark Rothko. Major auctions at Christie\u2019s and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1936477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1936477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1936477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1936477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1936477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}