Frida Kahlo Sets Women Artist Record
A Frida Kahlo self-portrait sold for $54.6 million at Sotheby's in New York, setting a new auction record for a woman artist. The sale highlights Kahlo's enduring power in the art market and demonstrates the robust state of collecting for female artists. The record-breaking price represents a significant milestone in art market recognition of women's contributions.
- The record-breaking painting, "El sueño (la cama)" ("The dream (The bed)"), was created in 1940 and depicts Kahlo asleep in a bed floating in the clouds with a skeleton figure wrapped in dynamite lying above her. - This sale surpassed the previous record for a work by a female artist, held by Georgia O'Keeffe's "Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1," which sold for $44.4 million in 2014. - The new record also shattered Kahlo's own previous auction record of $34.9 million, set in 2021 for her 1949 painting "Diego y yo" ("Diego and I"). - "Diego y yo" was Kahlo's final fully realized "bust" self-portrait and features a small image of her husband, Diego Rivera, on her forehead, symbolizing his presence in her thoughts. - The buyer of "El sueño (la cama)" has not been publicly identified. - Many of Frida Kahlo's artworks are considered national cultural heritage in Mexico, which restricts their sale and movement outside the country, making the few pieces in international private collections highly sought after. - The painting had been in the same private collection for 45 years, having last been sold at Sotheby's in 1980 for $51,000. - Despite the record, some art historians have expressed concern that the culturally significant painting, last exhibited publicly in the late 1990s, could once again disappear from public view.
