Rosco raises record £36.8m

A Mark Rothko abstract painting became the most expensive work of post-war art sold at auction when it went for $72.8 million (£36.8 million ) at Sotheby's in New York.

An anonymous telephone bidder bought Rothko's 1950 White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose) from 91-year-old philanthropist David Rockefeller. Mr Rockefeller had bought the painting for $8,500 in 1960.

The Rothko sale topped the record set minutes earlier when Francis Bacon's Study From Innocent X fetched £26.6 million. Calvin Klein, model Stephanie Seymour, hotelier Ian Schrager and even Sotheby's former owner Alfred Taubman were among those who witnessed yet another night of art market history.

Although White Center had been widely expected to break the record set by a Willem de Kooning painting last November, the price paid - more than £15million above its estimate - once again left art experts reeling.

Tobias Meyer, Sotheby's auctioneer and head of contemporary art, admitted: "We were hopeful before tonight but we didn't expect it would go as high as it did. The quality of the picture and its uniqueness set its own parameters. People made up their minds up as they went along."

Mr Rockefeller, who will donate the proceeds from the sale to charity, hung White Center in his office when he was chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank from 1961 to 1981. Most recently the painting was in his office in Manhattan's Rockefeller Center.

The philanthropist has opted to take advantage of the current overheated art market which has seen prices for 20thcentury works triple in the last decade. Mr Rockefeller knew the market for Rothkos was red-hot right now and that putting his name to the sale of White Center would make it more lucrative.

He said he had chosen Sotheby's as the auction house had approached him first. But Sotheby's is understood to have beaten Christie's in the bid to sell the painting by offering a guaranteed £23million regardless of whether it sold. Mr Rockefeller regularly donates paintingsto New York's Museum of Modern Art but John Elderfield, a curator there, said: "We don't need it. We already have five Rothkos from the 1950s."

Mr Rockefeller, at last night's auction, said: "I'm very pleased that it did so well. I've enjoyed living with it for 46 years and I'm very sorry to see it go." Sold to a mystery telephone bidder, Bacon's 1962 Study From Innocent X shattered its estimate of £20million, as well as the previous record for a Bacon set at Christie's in February when American-dealer Andrew Fabricant paid £14million for Study For Portrait II.

Oliver Barker, contemporary art specialist at Sotheby's in London, said: "In the last 18 months there has been a new record price for Bacon at each sale season which paved the way for this iconic portrait to come on the market." The Architect's Home In The Ravine (1991) by Scottish artist Peter Doig sold for £1.8 million, double its high estimate of £900,000.

Doig is perhaps the living artist who is benefiting most from the current art boom - his 1991 painting White Canoe astonished art experts by selling for £5.73million in February. Other British winners last night included Cecily Brown, whose 1997-8 painting Guys And Dolls, an assortment of graphic nudes, fetched £556,186, setting a record for the New York-based London painter.