News|Arts and CultureFrida Kahlo painting sells for $54.7m, breaking record for female artistsA 1940 self-portrait by Frida Kahlo has sold for $54.7m and made auction history at Sotheby’s in New York.
A haunting 1940 self-portrait by famed Mexican artist Frida Kahlo has sold for $54.7m, making it the most expensive work by a female artist to sell at auction.
A haunting 1940 self-portrait by famed Mexican artist Frida Kahlo has sold for $54.7m, making it the most expensive work by a female artist to sell at auction.
The painting of Kahlo asleep in a bed, titled El sueno (La cama) – or in English, The Dream (The Bed) – surpassed the record held by Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower No 1, which sold for $44.4m in 2014.
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The 1949 painting, Diego and I, depicting the artist and her husband, muralist Diego Rivera, went for $34.9m in 2021.
Her paintings are reported to have sold privately for even more.
A haunting 1940 self-portrait by famed Mexican artist Frida Kahlo has sold for $54.7m, making it the most expensive work by a female artist to sell at auction.
The self-portrait that broke records on Thursday is among the few Kahlo pieces that have remained in private hands outside Mexico, where her body of work has been declared an artistic monument.
Kahlo’s works in both public and private collections within Mexico cannot be sold abroad or destroyed. Because the painting sold on Thursday comes from a private collection, it is legally eligible for international sale. Sotheby’s said the owner who put the painting up for auction – and whose identity has not been disclosed – “astutely” purchased the piece also at auction in New York in 1980.
The buyer’s identity was also not disclosed.
'El sueño (La cama)' by Frida Kahlo soars to $54.7 million, becoming the most valuable work by a woman artist ever sold at auction.
Painted in 1940 during a pivotal decade in her career, marked by her turbulent relationship with Diego Rivera.
Based on reporting by Al Jazeera.
