Mark’s last $1 million won’t buy much of a Rothko these days:
The witty 1944 work, Untitled, is a Surrealist rendering fashioned with a “Miro meets Dali in Madrid” influence, his style loosened and spatial with forms flattened and colors softened. The watercolor on cardboard sold at Sotheby’s in May 2005 for $350,000 (including buyer’s premium).
Or maybe a tiny scrap of a colored-block oil on canvas:
David Rockefeller’s success last spring in selling his 1950 Rothko for $72.8 million, a record price for the artist, has drawn many more Rothkos to auction. “Untitled (Red, Blue, Orange),” a classic abstract canvas from 1955, became the most expensive work of the evening.
Five bidders tried for the painting, which sold to a telephone bidder for $34.2 million, against a high estimate of $30 million.