The Tamesis
A painting by Mark Rothko once owned by art patron Agnes Gund, the longtime president emeritus of the Museum of Modern Art, sold at Christie’s on Monday night for a hammer price of $85 million. Including fees, the total price reached $98.4 million, easily breaking the auction record for an Abstract Expressionist painter.
The work started with a bid of $60 million, and subsequently received bids from more than a dozen buyers, represented by several Christie’s experts. The final buyer, represented by Rachael White Young, a senior expert on postwar and contemporary art, received warm applause.
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No. 15 (two green and red stripes)A 7-foot-tall abstract painting created in 1964 has an auction estimate of $80 million, matching the record set by the artist in 2012. Orange, red, yellow (1961) also sold at Christie’s in New York, for a total of $86.9 million, just under double the high estimate. Gund’s Rothko measures 93 x 69 inches, with Orange, red, yellowmeasuring 93 x 81.3 inches. But where the latter work is a bright composition of oranges and reds, Gund’s is rather moody and complex, featuring fields of deep green and indigo, the lower third cut by sharp red-orange stripes.
No. 15Its provenance is short and sweet: Gund purchased the painting directly from Rothko in 1967, three years before the artist committed suicide in 1970. Gund is said to have hung the Rothko painting in her living room ever since.
Until his death last September, Gund remained an important art collector and frequently appeared in art news Listed among the top 200 collectors, and served as president of the Museum of Modern Art from 1991 to 2002. Her collection contains more than 2,000 works created between 1940 and the 2020s, including works by Jasper Jones, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Serra, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, John Baldessari and others.
Rothko’s record was nearly surpassed last week when art dealer Robert Mnuchin’s Rothko, brown and black red (1957) sold at Sotheby’s in New York for $85.8 million, just $1 million shy of the record. Estimates for the work are broader, ranging from $70 million to $100 million. The work also has strong provenance, having debuted at the Sidney Janis Gallery and later acquired the collection of Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, Inc. After consigning the work to Vivendi, which acquired Seagram in 2001, it was sold to Mnuchin at Sotheby’s in 2003.
