Sotheby’s New York held a $433.1 million modern and contemporary art sale at its Madison Avenue headquarters, led by Mark Rothko’s *Brown and Blacks in Reds* (1957), which sold for $85.8 million. The auction opened with 11 works from the estate of legendary dealer Robert Mnuchin, totaling $166.3 million, including a second Rothko and pieces by Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and Pablo Picasso. The contemporary art segment followed, with Jean-Michel Basquiat’s *Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown)* (1983) selling for $52.7 million. The overall sale was described by advisers as robust but not particularly exciting, and it significantly exceeded the $186.1 million equivalent sale from last year.
This sale matters because it signals a strong start to the May auction season in New York, with major sales at Christie’s and Phillips still to come. The Mnuchin estate consignment, which included works that had appreciated dramatically—such as the Rothko bought for $6.7 million in 2003 and resold for $85.8 million—highlights the enduring demand for blue-chip modern and contemporary art. The results also underscore the market’s resilience and the continued high value placed on Abstract Expressionist and Neo-Expressionist works, even as bidding was described as thin for some lots.