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Old November 23rd, 2012 #1
Pat Bateman
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Default $75 Million Rothko Painting Leads Sotheby's Record-Setting Sale of Judenscheisse

A general rule regarding art:

If it takes 4 jews to explain what you're looking at - you're looking at shit.




$75 Million Rothko Leads Sotheby's Record-Setting Sale
By Kelly Crow

Sotheby's sold a Mark Rothko abstract for $75 million on Tuesday in a contemporary-art auction whose total—$375 million—surpassed any in its company history.


This Mark Rothko abstract sold for $75 million Fittingly, the Rothko painting is titled, "No. 1 (Royal Red & Blue)."

The sale of the 1954 Rothko—with its floating red, pink and blue rectangles—pushed the auction house's sale total over the $362 million it got from a similar evening sale in May 2008 that marked the peak of the last market cycle. It's unclear whether Tuesday's performance amounts to a similar cresting, but in the short term it could boost collectors' confidence in art values—especially after last week's disappointing sales of Impressionist and modern art.

Rothko is a master of Abstract Expressionism, and his midcentury meditations on color and modernism typically sell well in good times and bad: Sotheby's caused a stir five years ago when it sold one of his 1950 abstracts for $72.8 million, a record price at the time. Four months ago, Christie's in New York topped that price by getting $86.8 million for a 1961 Rothko, "Orange, Red, Yellow."

Dealers said the Rothko sold well in part because of its size—it is 9½ feet tall—and its tropical hues, which are as saturated as a sunset. As a work of Abstract Expressionism, the Rothko also dovetails with current collecting tastes: Lately, buyers from Omaha to Okinawa have been seeking out colorful works from the postwar period when America, and its artists, prospered. Today, many of these 1950s and 1960s abstracts have trickled out of the marketplace and into museums, so collectors pounce whenever major examples come up for sale.

Sotheby's offered up a group of eight postwar abstracts from the collection of department-store magnate Sidney Kohl and his wife, Dorothy, led by Jackson Pollock's $40.4 million "Number 4, 1951."
Besides the Rothko, Sotheby's offered up a group of eight postwar abstracts from the collection of department-store magnate Sidney Kohl and his wife, Dorothy. All sold well and collectively brought in over $100 million—nearly a quarter of the sale's entire total. Leading this Kohl group was Jackson Pollock $40.4 million "Number 4, 1951," a drippy, honeybee-colored canvas that was estimated to sell for up to $35 million.


Jackson Pollock's $40.4 million "Number 4, 1951."

The telephone bidder who won it also paid Sotheby's $19.6 million for Willem de Kooning, "Abstraction," within its $15 million to $20 million asking price. Another piece from the Kohls, Clyfford Still's "1948-H," sold for $9.8 million.


Despite the fact that Sotheby's York Avenue saleroom was packed with heavyweight collectors like Eli Broad from Los Angeles, Stefan Edlis from Chicago and Donald Bryant from New York, many of the sale's pieces went to fresh faces. An unassuming brunette sitting midway back outbid rivals to win a $9.3 million Franz Kline, "Shenandoah." Minutes later, she paid $6.2 million for an untitled Joan Mitchell abstract. A Chinese man with ruddy cheeks sitting in the front row won a $722,500 Roy Lichtenstein sculpture.

Sotheby's had to work hard to get bidders to stretch for other works, though. It only took a single telephone bid for a collector to win a $17.4 million Gerhard Richter "Abstract Painting" from 1990, and other examples by Arshile Gorky, Jean-Michel Basquiat and John Currin traded hands after only a single bid.

Yet overall, 58 of Sotheby's 69 works found buyers, and that helped the house achieve a rare 95.6% of its sale's potential value.

Christie's will counter with its own contemporary art sale on Wednesday.

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