ECONOMIST.COM says in its Art.view column that the prize item in a Sotheby’s New York sale of contemporary art on May 15th is a major painting by Mark Rothko, a Latvian-born, American abstract expressionist.
David Rockefeller picked up the painting, titled “White Centre”, for around $10,000 in 1960, and it hung in his outer office when he was chairman of the Chase Manhattan bank. The painting is described by Oliver Barker of Sotheby’s, with barely a trace of exaggeration, as “a masterpiece”.
