From The Economist (http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/artview/displaystory.cfm?story_id...)

The prize item in Sotheby's New York sale of contemporary art on May 15th is by Mark Rothko, a Latvian-born, American abstract expressionist. David Rockefeller picked up the painting, titled White Centre, for around $10,000 in 1960, and it hung in his outer office when he was chairman of the Chase Manhattan bank. The painting (pictured below) is described by Oliver Barker of Sotheby’s, with barely a trace of exaggeration, as a masterpiece.…