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