The work No. 10, created in 1949, was sold for $8.5 million after seven minutes of intense bidding at Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary Evening Auction in Hong Kong, setting a new record for Mark Rothko’s early Multiforms series.
Meanwhile, Joan Mitchell’s La Grande Vallée VI, the top lot and highest-valued sale of the auction, drew attention by setting a record as the most expensive work by a female artist ever sold at auction in Asia.
No. 10: The Beginning of Abstract Emotion
No. 10 represents the beginning of Rothko’s innovative approach to color and form that would come to define his career. At the same time, as a significant example of the Multiforms series, it reflects the artist’s transition from figurative representation to abstract fields of color.
The color blocks in the work, lacking clear boundaries, carry early traces of an approach aimed at establishing a direct emotional connection with the viewer. The Multiforms series would go on to anticipate the large-scale canvases that later became known as Rothko’s classic masterpieces.
In the 1960s, Rothko designed a series of murals for the Four Seasons Restaurant in the Seagram Building. However, disturbed by the idea that his paintings would become merely decorative objects for wealthy clients, the artist returned the lucrative commission and donated the works to museums, including the Tate Gallery.
Although Rothko lived a relatively modest life for much of his lifetime, the resale value of his paintings increased significantly in the years following his suicide in 1970.
