A masterpiece from Robert Mnuchin’s collection
“Brown and Blacks in Reds” (1957), a monumental work by Mark Rothko, was auctioned by Sotheby’s for nearly 86 million dollars, 85.8 to be exact. It had been offered alongside ten other paintings from the collection of Robert Mnuchin, a financier turned gallerist.
Sotheby's 34-35 New Bond St, Mayfair, London W1A 2AA, UK. Photo Kwh1050 Wikimedia Commons, license CC BY-SA 4.0
The Sale
The Rothko had been estimated between 70 and 100 million dollars: the final price, including auction fees, somewhat fell short of expectations, even considering its impeccable provenance. Nevertheless, it is a remarkable result, placing second in the artist’s sales ranking, just behind the 86.8 million dollars fetched by “Orange, Red, Yellow” (Christie’s, 2012).
“Brown and Blacks in Reds” was purchased by phone after a bidding battle lasting just a few minutes. Sotheby’s Vice President and Head of Contemporary Art, David Galperin, described the market as “selective, but capable of generating excitement.” “The number of collectors willing and able to bid on a work of that size and value is limited,” Galperin explained, noting that the artist’s market has been relatively quiet in recent years, with only a handful of major paintings coming to auction and none selling for over 70 million dollars.
The May 14 auction “Robert Mnuchin: Collector at Heart Evening Auction” also included works by other great modern and postwar masters supported by the gallerist throughout his career, among them Willem de Kooning, Pablo Picasso, and Franz Kline, for a total of 166 million dollars.
Mark Rothko Four Darks in Red 1958 oil on canvas 258.6×295.6 cm New York,
Whitney Museum of American Art; purchase, with funds from the Friends of
the Whitney Museum of American Art, Mr. e Mrs. Eugene M. Schwartz,
Mrs. Samuel A. Seaver e Charles Simon, 68.9, Cat. Rais. n. 611
Digital image Whitney Museum of American Art / Licensed by Scala
Mark Rothko Untitled 1952–53 oil on canvas 299.5×442.5 cm Bilbao, Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa, Cat. Rais. n. 483 Image © FMGB Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa, photo Erika Barahona
Mark Rothko No.3 / No. 13 1949 oil on canvas 216.5×164.8 cm New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Bequest of Mrs. Mark Rothko through The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc. 428.1981, Cat. Rais. n. 410 Digital image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence
Brown and Blacks in Reds
Mark Rothko created 37 paintings in 1957, a significant year during which he experimented considerably with the palette and format of his famed, signature abstractions. By 1957, Rothko had well mastered the format that would define his life and work and for the first time could earn a living from his painting alone.
In Brown and Blacks in Reds, the central masterpiece of Robert Mnuchin’s collection, we see his goals realized: the painting powerfully expresses what it means to paint, to perceive, to live, and to feel. The black and brilliant red do not represent an image, but a direct encounter with the artist at the height of his abilities, giving concrete form to that sense of deep passion that belongs to human experience. The spirit, composition, and colors of Brown and Blacks in Reds suggest many comparisons with art history. None, however, proved as significant as Henri Matisse’s The Red Studio, displayed at the Museum of Modern Art and visited multiple times by Rothko himself.
Brown and Blacks in Reds was first owned by Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, Inc., who acquired the work from Sidney Janis Gallery in New York and proudly installed it in the lobby of the eponymous Seagram Building in Manhattan, the only work by the artist to bear the honor of hanging in the Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson-designed space. Rothko, however, eventually grew disturbed by the potential reduction of these works as decoration, as opposed to experiences unto themselves. He ultimately withdrew, retained the works, and presented nine canvases to the Tate, whose galleries could honor their sovereignty and aural authority.
“Pictures must be miraculous,” Rothko stated, “the instant one is completed, the intimacy between the creation and the creator is ended. He is an outsider. The picture must be for him, as for anyone experiencing it later, a revelation, an unexpected and unprecedented resolution of an eternally familiar need.”
Photograph of Mark Rothko, painter, by Conseulo Kanaga
Robert E. Mnuchin, 1951
The Collector Robert Mnuchin
Robert Mnuchin (1933–2025) was a leading figure in the international art market and a quiet yet decisive protagonist of the golden age of American collecting. Born in Manhattan in 1933 and raised in Scarsdale in a Jewish family that collected modern art, Mnuchin studied at Yale, where he graduated in 1955. His passion for art, cultivated alongside his financial career, translated over time into a refined and cohesive collection centered on American Abstract Expressionism.
At the helm of his galleries — first C&M Arts, then L&M Arts, and finally Mnuchin Gallery — he became one of the most influential dealers in the field of modern and postwar art, handling works by Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock, and Andy Warhol.
His name entered art market history definitively in 2019, when he acquired Jeff Koons’s celebrated Rabbit (1986) on behalf of Cohen at Christie’s for 91 million dollars, then an absolute record for a living artist. The episode also drew further attention due to a political coincidence: one of his sons, Steven Mnuchin, was at that time serving as United States Secretary of the Treasury.
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