A YELLOW and blue Mark Rothko painting once owned by fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho or Jho Low, valued at an estimated US$30 million, is set to be auctioned at Sotheby's in Hong Kong later this year.
According to Artnet, the work is a vibrant and striking piece that has been exhibited in prestigious galleries around the world and is the first Rothko oil painting offered at auction in Asia.
The auction, initially scheduled for next week, has been postponed to November, as reported by Artnet.
The painting is set to appear in a Modern and Contemporary art auction on Nov 8 at Sotheby’s Maison, a 24,000-square-foot retail and exhibition venue that opened in July in the Landmark Chater mall in the city’s Central district.
It would be on display at the Maison from Friday through Sept 25.
The painting has a storied history, having passed through several high-profile owners, including American philanthropists Paul and Bunny Mellon, who acquired it around 1970–71, French luxury mogul François Pinault, and Azerbaijani-Russian billionaire Farkhad Akhmedov, who purchased it at Sotheby's in 2015 for US$46.45 million.
Low later used the painting as collateral for a loan, allowing Sotheby's to offer it for sale again in 2015 when it was still a public company (it went private under Patrick Drahi in 2019).
Rothko was a prominent American painter of the Abstract Expressionist movement who was born in Russia in 1903.
He immigrated to the United States as a young child and is renowned for his large-scale, colourful rectangular paintings, which often stirs strong emotional responses.
Earlier this year, the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) ordered Low to forfeit over US$100 million in assets, including a luxury Paris apartment and works by Claude Monet and Andy Warhol, over his involvement in the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) scandal. - September 23, 2024
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