Coming November, Mark Rothko’s masterpiece Untitled (Rust, Blacks on Plum) will be offered for sale for the second time since it was created in 1962, with an estimate of $35 million to $45 million.

Rothko possessed the painting until his death in 1970 at age 66.



The current owners, Francois de Menil, architect and filmmaker, and his wife, Susan, acquired the painting in 1978 from Pace Gallery, which represented the Rothko estate. Months later, it was exhibited in the Rothko retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan.

However, the de Menil family’s connection to Untitled (Rust, Blacks on Plum) traced back to Francois’s parents, Dominique and John de Menil. The couple, both collectors, were known for founding the Menil Collection and the Rothko Chapel in Houston.

In 1964, Dominique de Menil, then chairman of the art history department of the University of St. Thomas in Houston, arranged an exhibition, Six Painters, at the university, which featured five works by Rothko, including Untitled (Rust, Blacks on Plum), as well as works by five other midcentury masters: Piet Mondrian, Philip Guston, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, and Jackson Pollock.

Rothko’s current auction record was set in 2012 when his work Orange, Red, Yellow (1961) sold for $86.9 million at a Christie’s auction.

Additionally, four works by Joseph Cornell—a friend of Rothko’s—also from the collection of Francois and Susan de Menil, will also be auctioned by Christie’s during its post-war and contemporary art evening sale on Nov. 15.

“This group presents a wonderful opportunity to juxtapose the brilliant work of two markedly different artists, Mark Rothko and Joseph Cornell,” says Ana Maria Celis, senior specialist and head of the post-war and contemporary art evening sale at Christie’s. “Although their styles varied dramatically, through the eyes of farsighted collectors, one can see the interconnectedness of two visionary artists who not only worked at the same time, but were inspired by one another’s passions.”