Rothko, Lichtenstein brought in Over $88 Million At Sotheby’s Auction on the Upper East Side of Manhattan New York.

Rothko’s “Untitled (Yellow and Blue)” fetched $46.4 million. The 8-foot-tall abstract painting of large yellow and blue planes, created in 1954, once hung at the National Gallery in Washington for 10 years.  I wonder if he knew his work would be so coveted

“When I was a younger man, art was a lonely thing. No galleries, no collectors, no critics, no money. Yet, it was a golden age, for we all had nothing to lose and a vision to gain.
― Mark Rothko

Lichtenstein’s “The Ring (Engagement)” garnered $41.7 million. The 1962 work was sold by philanthropist Stefan Edlis. Last month, the Art Institute of Chicago announced Edlis was donating a group of 42 pop and contemporary artworks valued at about $40 million.

The current Rothko auction record is nearly $87 million. Lichtenstein’s is $56 million.  And Sotheby’s isn’t the only game flying high.

The Sotheby’s auction came a day after Pablo Picasso’s “Women of Algiers (Version O)” set a world record for artwork at auction at Christie’s at Rockefeller Plaza, selling for nearly $179.4 million.

Drink to me.
― Pablo Picasso 

But the big news this summer is Christie’s which sold over $1 Billion dollars in 3 days.  With paintings like Mark Rothko’s “No.10″ going for $82 million or Andy Warhol’s “Colored Mona Lisa” topping $56 million, it is no wonder Christie’s made history this summer by becoming the first auction house to cross the $1 billion mark in total art sales in one week.