Bidders came out for Mark Rothko's No. 1, a 1949 masterwork that marks the artist's watershed transition into his signature style. First unveiled at the legendary Betty Parsons Gallery in January 1950 alongside eleven other paintings, No. 1 is one of only three works from that historic show still in private hands — the rest now reside in institutions including MoMA, the National Gallery of Art, and LACMA. Soaring nearly 80 inches tall, the painting's registers of golden yellow, cerulean blue, and fiery orange foreshadow the tripartite format that would define Rothko's mature abstractions. As scholar David Anfam wrote, its palette is "the quintessential palette of late Bonnard" — a bridge between two of the towering influences on Rothko's sensibility. Still haven’t subscribed to Sotheby’s on YouTube? ►►https://www.youtube.com/sothebys/

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