Considered No. 34 One Of The Worlds Greatest Painting, Sold For $75 Million US Dollars

. No 1 Royal Red and Blue (1954) Mark Rothko

1. Considered a Surrealist and Abstract Expressionist, though he didn’t identify with any art movement, Mark Rothko began studying art and painting in NYC where he lived in the 1920s; his teachers and mentors were Arshile Gorky, Max Weber and Milton Avery, all heavyweights in the contemporary modernist world. In the 1930s and ‘40s Rothko’s paintings were based on Greek mythology, as well as Christian and ancient Egyptian religious themes. But by the 1950s, Rothko delved into abstraction and began giving his paintings numbers rather than titles. Considered a Color Field painting, No 1 Royal Red and Blue is a huge painting with a vertical format and no frame. It’s a decidedly simple painting, one which Rothko wanted to evoke emotion, mortality, sensuality and spirituality. Rothko’s paintings have sold for millions of dollars in recent decades. In 2012, this painting sold for $75 million.