Rothko painting sets postwar record

‘White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose)’ sold for $73 million

Mark Rothko's 1950 "White Center" oil on canvas. The painting sold to an anonymous telephone bidder for $72.8 million at Sotheby's Contemporary Art Evening on Tuesday evening May 15.

updated 11:13 p.m. ET May 15, 2007

NEW YORK - The record price for postwar art was broken twice at a Sotheby’s auction Tuesday, first with a Francis Bacon work and later with a Mark Rothko painting, which went for almost $73 million, the auction house said.

The 1950 Rothko painting, “White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose),” of blocks of color, sold for $72.8 million to an anonymous bidder, Sotheby’s said.

Shortly before, a 1962 Bacon painting of a pope, “Study from Innocent X,” sold to an anonymous bidder for $52.6 million.

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The previous record was held by a 1977 Willem de Kooning work of swaths of bright colors called “Untitled XXV,” which sold for $27 million at a Christie’s auction last November, Sotheby’s said.