May 16 (Bloomberg) -- A Francis Bacon painting smashed the
auction record for postwar art last night in New York, fetching
$52.7 million. Its reign lasted just 10 minutes, before being
trumped by a Mark Rothko work that went for $72.8 million.

``Money has no meaning,'' said Angela Westwater of New York
gallery Sperone Westwater, after the Rothko sold. ``It's a good
work, but the whole marketplace is crazy.''

Rothko, Bacon Set Records at `Crazy' Sotheby's Sale (Update1)
2007-05-16 03:19 (New York)

(Adds location of sale in second paragraph.)

By Lindsay Pollock and Philip Boroff
May 16 (Bloomberg) -- A Francis Bacon painting smashed the
auction record for postwar art last night in New York, fetching
$52.7 million. Its reign lasted just 10 minutes, before being
trumped by a Mark Rothko work that went for $72.8 million.
Rothko's hot-hued ``White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender
on Rose),'' from seller David Rockefeller Sr., and Bacon's fierce
crouching Pope, ``Study From Innocent X,'' helped propel the 74-
lot auction at Sotheby's to a record $254.9 million. Before
tonight, the highest auction price for an artwork from the period
was a $27.1 million Willem de Kooning in November.
``Money has no meaning,'' said Angela Westwater of New York
gallery Sperone Westwater, after the Rothko sold. ``It's a good
work, but the whole marketplace is crazy.''
Rockefeller, 91, calmly watched the saleroom from a glass-
enclosed skybox as five telephone bidders competed for his
painting. Below sat 700 swells, including Calvin Klein, hotelier
Ian Schrager and former Sotheby's Chairman Alfred Taubman.
Rockefeller has said he will donate the proceeds of the
Rothko sale to charity. ``I am very pleased that it did so
well,'' he said in a statement. ``I'm sorry to see it go.''
Bacon's pope image also sold to a telephone bidder. The 1962
work, from the artist's series of papal portraits, was estimated
to fetch more than $30 million. Meshulam Riklis bought the
painting in 1975 and gave it to his daughter, New Yorker Mona
Ackerman, who was the seller.

Prince, Rauschenberg

The evening's total, and last week's $619.7 million in sales
of Impressionist and modern art by Sotheby's and Christie's
International in New York, show the market continues to boom.
Prices include a buyer's premium of 20 percent of the hammer
price up to $500,000, and 12 percent on the rest.
Last night's sale, more electric than either of last week's,
set 15 artist records, including for Richard Prince, Robert
Rauschenberg, Cecily Brown, John Baldessari and Morris Louis. The
previous high of $239.7 million was set in November, 2006, at
Christie's International.
Still, not every artist was in demand. None of the three
Jackson Pollock drip paintings offered drew any bids.
Mexican art collector and Metropolitan Museum of Art trustee
Paula Cussi was identified by two dealers as the seller of the
priciest Pollock. Cussi is the ex-wife of the late Emilio
Azcarraga Milmo, former chairman of Grupo Televisa SA.
``Number 16, 1949,'' a cascade of reds, yellows, greens and
blacks, was estimated to sell for as much as $25 million. The
painting was on paper, mounted on Masonite. Sotheby's disclosed
``an ownership interest'' it declined to explain.

Skeletal Grimace

The Israel Museum in Jerusalem sold a powerful 1981 Jean-
Michel Basquiat painting of a grimacing skeletal figure for an
artist record of $14.6 million, nearly double the high estimate.
Proceeds will go to a contemporary art fund at the museum.
Rothko, a major Abstract Expressionist, painted ``White
Center,'' in July 1950, soon after he developed his signature
floating pools of color. ``White Center'' was influenced by a
trip to Italy, where the artist observed the dry, bright pigments
used by Renaissance fresco master Giotto, according to Bonnie
Clearwater, author of ``The Rothko Book'' and director of the
Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, Florida.
``Rothko wanted painting to be miraculous for the viewer and
for himself,'' Clearwater said. ``They weren't just colors on a
canvas but a mirror of modern fragmented times.''
``White Center'' had a presale estimate of more than $40
million, nearly double the artist's previous auction record.
Rockefeller acquired the painting in 1960 for $8,500 (about
$59,000 in current dollars) on the advice of Dorothy Miller,
former curator of New York's Museum of Modern Art.

Rockefeller Allure

``I had gotten a Rothko for him,'' Miller told an
interviewer in 1971. ``One of the early ones with lots of color,
a beautiful one. He wanted to have it in his office.''
The painting had hung in Rockefeller's office at Chase
Manhattan Bank along with a Chinese statue that had belonged to
his mother, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, one of MoMA's founders.
Rockefeller was the bank's chairman.
The Rockefeller name was a big factor in the success of the
sale, dealers said.
``While it's a spectacular painting, it's clear the allure
of having David Rockefeller's painting in your house is going way
beyond what you might otherwise consider reasonable,'' said New
York dealer Marc Glimcher of PaceWildenstein gallery, which
represents the Rothko estate. ``That kind of thing is becoming
irresistible to people.''

Another Chance

Disappointed bidders still have an opportunity to buy a
Rothko this week. Christie's postwar and contemporary art auction
today includes two.
A red and burgundy 1961 work ``Untitled'' has an estimate of
as much as $18 million. A pink and orange 1954 canvas, also
``Untitled,'' may fetch $25 million, according to Christie's. The
seller, identified in the catalog as ``a distinguished private
collector,'' is said by three dealers to be art dealer and former
Goldman, Sachs & Co. partner Robert Mnuchin of L & M Arts.
Mnuchin bought the painting in 1980 for his private collection.