Renowned across the art world for his discerning eye for the artists represented in his personal collection - including Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, and Willem de Kooning - the superlative quality of the examples that Mnuchin chose for himself reflect this extreme level of connoisseurship. Acquiring the works that resonated with him in their ambition and achievement, the group of works is led by Mark Rothko’s towering Brown and Blacks in Reds from 1957 (estimate $70-100 million).
Collection Highlights
Mark Rothko
The collection is led by two paintings by Mark Rothko, both dating to pivotal years of the artist’s career. Standing nearly 8 feet tall, his
1957 Brown and Blacks in Reds hails from the artist’s most important decade, when he developed his signature rectangular bands of color (estimate $70-100 Million). Executed in Rothko’s coveted red, the painting illustrates the artist’s famed mastery of color. Acquired circa 1957 by Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, Inc., the color palette of this work surely would have played an important influence in the development and conceptualization of the seminal Seagram Mural commission in the years to follow. This painting is one of 15 monumental (90+ in.) canvases created in 1957, most of which reside in museum collections including the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Offentliche Kunstsammlung Basel; Australian National Gallery, Canberra; and The Panza Collection at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, among others. Held in Mnuchin’s collection for more than two decades, Brown and Blacks in Reds has been exhibited in some of the most important exhibitions dedicated to the artist, from the 1978-79 traveling retrospective organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Rothko, Tate London, 1987; to the celebrated recent show at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris.
Distinguished by its bright, vivid palette, Rothko’s 1949 No. 1 dates to a critical year of transition in the artist’s practice, as he made the shift from the nebulous multiforms of the late 1940s to the iconic stacked bands of color that would define his mature output from the early 1950s onward (estimate $15-20 million). In this work, both formats coexist, presenting a rare combination of his two most significant bodies of work. Included in a seminal 1950 exhibition at Betty Parsons Gallery, the early champion of the Abstract Expressionists, No. 1 stands at the very threshold of Rothko’s breakthrough.
Willem de Kooning
The selection on offer this May presents a retrospective encapsulation of de Kooning’s career, featuring works spanning four decades from the 1950s through the 1980s. It is led by the artist’s
1983 Untitled XLII, a superb example of his late, lyrical style distinguished by fluid passages of blue, red, pink and violet. Making its auction debut, the painting is the most significant work from de Kooning’s final decade to appear since Untitled IV achieved over $18.9 million in the landmark Macklowe Collection sale in November 2021.
Franz Kline
Held in Mnuchin’s collection for more than two decades,
Franz Kline, Harleman, 1960. Oil on canvas, 53 x 102 inches. Courtesy Mnuchin Gallery. © 2025 The Franz Kline Estate and Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Timothy Doyon.
Harleman is the finest work by the artist to come to auction in a decade. Executed in 1960, the work is a monumental. Named after the artist’s friend Stanley Harleman, the work subtly anchors his radical abstractions in the figures and places of his Pennsylvania hometown.
Jeff Koons
Robert Mnuchin was among Jeff Koons’s earliest supporters, demonstrating the ambition and conviction of a commercial gallery by boldly staging what was effectively the first major retrospective of the artist’s work in New York. The artist’s
Louis XIV is an icon of the artist’s celebrated Statuary series, and stands alongside his most important early works. Koons first adopted his signature polished stainless steel in this seminal body of work, which would become synonymous with his practice. Inspired by a fiberglass bust the artist encountered on Canal Street, Louis XIV marks Koon’s first direct engagement with canonical “high” art. Moving beyond domestic commodities and advertising imagery, Koons turned to art history as the subject. The work has been included in nearly every major retrospective of his work. This example is the artist’s proof from an edition of 3, plus one artist’s proof. The rest of the editions are held in museum collections, including the Nasher Sculpture Center, The Broad, and the DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art.
