Mark Rothko (1903 – 1970)

[02/09/2003]

With a bought-in lots rate of just 6%, Rothko paintings are among the most eagerly sought in the US.

Mark Rothko was born on 25 September 1903 in Dvinsk, Russia, and emigrated to the US with his family when he was 10. He enrolled in the Art Students League in 1924 and took part in his first group exhibition at the Opportunity Gallery, New York, in 1928. In the 1930s he worked in an expressionist style, painting New York street and subway scenes, and interiors with figures. After his first solo show, in 1933 at the Portland Museum of Art in Oregon, his work was soon hanging in the Contemporary Arts Gallery, New York, and a few months later, he joined The Ten, an expressionist group with which he exhibited until 1939. Then, with the war, his work underwent a transformation in both style and themes, taking on a mystical quality and surrealist influences. From 1944, wide horizontal bands of colour began to appear in the background to paintings sometimes featuring biomorphic shapes. At the end of the 1940s, his technique became increasingly fluid and he abandoned symbolic references, devoting himself instead to colour and composition, and the number of rectangles in his multiform paintings gradually dwindled, as his mature style emerged, to just two, three or four in the 1950s. At the same times his canvases were getting bigger. His palette darkened throughout the 1960s, and after a heart attack in 1968-69 he returned to smaller formats, before, prey to depression, he committed suicide in his studio in 1970.

Artworks at auctions

Rothko produced over 2,000 works on paper, but these rarely come up for auction. Just one 120cm drawing has been sold since November 2000, fetching USD 600,000 at Phillips on 15 May 2003. Nor are Rothko paintings very common on the auction stands. They generally appear at the prestigious New York sales in May and November, and come up occasionally on the London market, only around half a dozen a year. The most sought after are the large canvases from the 1956-1960 period. Rothko’s current record price was for a 1958 work, set on 14 May 2003, when N°9 (White and Black on Wine) sold for USD 14.5 million. This enormous painting (over four metres wide) was part of the famous commission for the Seagram building. To date, no work painted before 1946 has reached the million dollar mark.

The market places

Rothko paintings are only sold on the US and UK markets, with New York pre-eminent thanks to the prestigious auctions organised by Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips.

Buy or sell

With a bought-in lots rate of just 6%, Mark ROTHKO paintings are among the most eagerly sought in the US. Only three works have failed to sell since 2000, but this was because the reserves were set higher than market rates, and not due to any lack of interest.
When sellers tailor their expectations to the market, estimates are often exceeded. Between December 1992 and June 2003 Rothko prices shot up 369%.Rothko’s price index peaked in 2001, and has fallen off since, but any Rothko sale will still rouse intense interest and, in fact, the current record was set in 2003 (see above). In the last six months, prices have edged down 6%.