A Mark Rothko painting formerly owned by the late philanthropist and arts patron Agnes Gund sold at Christie’s on Monday evening for $98.4 million, breaking the artist’s previous auction record per artnews.com.
The 1964 masterwork, titled No. 15 (Two Greens and Red Stripe), surpassed its $80 million pre-sale estimate following a competitive sequence of around a dozen bids, ultimately hammering at $85 million before taxes and buyer’s fees were applied.
The sale eclipses Rothko’s long-standing auction record of $86.9 million, which was established in 2012 at Christie’s New York for the 1961 canvas Orange, Red, Yellow. While that previous record-holder featured a vibrant palette, the newly sold seven-foot-tall abstraction offers a more complex composition of deep indigo and green fields divided by a sharp red-orange stripe. Bidding for the artwork commenced at $60 million on May 18, drawing widespread interest from several specialists before the final hammer fell to a client represented by Rachael White Young, a senior specialist in postwar and contemporary art.
The provenance of No. 15 (Two Greens and Red Stripe) is exceptionally rare, as Gund purchased the 93 by 69-inch canvas directly from Rothko in 1967, three years before the artist’s death. The painting reportedly remained on display in the living room of her home from the time of its acquisition until her death last September.
The landmark sale comes amidst a highly competitive season for the artist’s market. Just one week prior to the Christie’s event, another significant Rothko canvas, Browns and Blacks in Reds (1957), fetched $85.8 million at Sotheby’s New York, falling just short of the 2012 record.
Gund, who served as the president of the Museum of Modern Art from 1991 to 2002 and was later named president emerita, was widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost art collectors. Her extensive private collection comprised more than 2,000 works spanning eight decades, featuring seminal pieces by twentieth-century masters including Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert Rauschenberg.
•Featured image: Mark Rothko, No. 15 (Two Greens and Red Stripe), 1964/Christie’s Images Ltd. 2026
