All posts tagged: Robert Mnuchin

Sotheby’s 9.3 M. Contemporary Art Sale Led by .8 M. Rothko

Sotheby’s $389.3 M. Contemporary Art Sale Led by $85.8 M. Rothko

Published by José Betancourt

At its Madison Avenue headquarters, Sotheby’s kicked off the May auction season early, smack in the middle of the opening of art fairs all around Manhattan, with a solid if unexciting $433.1 million sale of modern and contemporary art, led by an $85.8 million canvas by Mark Rothko. Major auctions at Christie’s and Phillips will follow next week. The equivalent sale last year tallied just $186.1 million. “The sale was robust, and it felt authentic,” said New York adviser Laura Paulson as she exited the sale room partway through the evening.  Related Articles “It was a good sale,” said adviser Jacob King after unsuccessfully bidding on a Warhol. “Not particularly exciting, but good.” The sale opened with 11 works from the estate of legendary New York dealer Robert Mnuchin, who died last year at 92, and his wife Adriana. The group was estimated to sell for in excess of $130 million. The house guaranteed the seller an undisclosed price for the group of works, which included pieces by Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Pablo …

Robert Mnuchin Collection to Sell at Sotheby’s, Led by 0 M. Rothko

Robert Mnuchin Collection to Sell at Sotheby’s, Led by $100 M. Rothko

Published by José Betancourt

Sotheby’s is preparing to bring works from the collection of the late dealer and financier Robert Mnuchin to auction this May in New York, adding a fresh trove of blue-chip material to a season the house hopes will build on its blockbuster November and a strong start to the spring sales. The consignment is made up of 24 works from the personal collection Robert assembled with his wife Adriana Mnuchin, long known among collectors for its focus on museum-quality examples of postwar abstraction and modern art. Related Articles The sale will be led by Rothko’s monumental 1957 canvas Brown and Blacks in Reds, estimated at $70 million to $100 million, along with a second Rothko from 1949 estimated at $15 million to $20 million. Standing nearly eight feet tall, Brown and Blacks in Reds dates from Rothko’s most important decade, when the artist developed the luminous stacked bands of color that defined his mature work. Executed in one of the artist’s coveted red palettes, the painting once belonged to Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, whose celebrated Seagram Building commission with Rothko would soon follow. …

Mnuchin Gallery to Close After Death of Founder in December

Mnuchin Gallery to Close After Death of Founder in December

Published by José Betancourt

Mnuchin Gallery, the long-running Upper East Side establishment founded by Wall Street pioneer Robert Mnuchin, will close at the end of February. “For more than three decades, Mnuchin Gallery had the privilege of presenting exhibitions that fostered rare and sustained dialogue among scholars and audiences around some of the most significant art of our time,” the gallery said in a press release Wednesday. “In the wake of Robert Mnuchin’s passing on December 20, 2025, it is with gratitude and reflection that we announce the conclusion of the gallery’s program, an outcome that feels true to the fact that the gallery was, above all else, an expression of Robert’s passion and singular vision.” Related Articles The gallery’s final show, a series of plate paitings by Julian Schnabel, closed on Saturday. Mnuchin, a major figure at the investment bank Goldman Sachs in the 1960s and ’70s, died in December at 92. Mnuchin entered the art world after retiring from his finance career in 1990, partnering with James Corcoran to found C&M Arts two years later. The name …

Robert Mnuchin Collection to Sell at Sotheby’s, Led by 0 M. Rothko

Robert Mnuchin, Goldman Sachs Power Broker Turned Influential Art Dealer, Dies at 92

Published by Jenni Sidey

Robert Mnuchin, the Wall Street pioneer who became one of New York’s most respected art dealers and a fixture at blue-chip auctions, died on Friday at his home in Bridgewater, Connecticut. He was 92. His death, first reported by the New York Times, was confirmed by his stepdaughter, Lisa Hedley Wick.  Mnuchin was unusual in having two long and highly successful careers. At Goldman Sachs, he was a central figure in the rise of block trading in the 1960s and ’70s, helping build the firm’s institutional equities business under managing partner Gustave Levy. By 1978, the Wall Street Journal described him as “the acknowledged dean of block traders,” rivaled only by Salomon Brothers’ Michael Bloomberg. His skill on the trading floor—an encyclopedic recall of buyers and sellers, an instinct for pressure and timing—made him a legend inside the firm. He became a partner in 1967, co-headed trading and arbitrage by 1976, and joined the firm’s powerful management committee in 1980. He retired in 1990.  That same set of instincts—competitive, analytic, and deeply interpersonal—animated his second act. After …