Frida Kahlo self-portrait sells for record $54.66 million at Sotheby’s auction

A painting by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (here shown in a different self-portrait) sold for $54.66 million, setting a record for a painting by a woman. Photo / Getty Images

A self-portrait by legendary Mexican artist Frida Kahlo sold for US$54.66 million ($97.73m) in New York on Thursday, setting a new record for the price of a painting by a woman, the auction house Sotheby’s said.

The sale of Kahlo’s 1940 artwork, El sueno (la cama) – which translates to The dream (The bed) – breaks the previous record in this category, set by American artist Georgia O’Keeffe, whose 1932 painting Jimson Weed/White Flower No 1 sold for US$44.4m in 2014.

Kahlo’s painting is “the most valuable work by a woman artist ever sold at auction”, Sotheby’s said in a post on X.

The auction house said Kahlo’s work was “painted in 1940 during a pivotal decade in her career, marked by her turbulent relationship with Diego Rivera”.

Kahlo’s self-portrait went on the auction block at Sotheby’s with an estimated price ranging from US$40m to US$60m.

The buyer’s name was not disclosed.

The artwork depicts the artist sleeping in a bed that appears to float among clouds in the sky, lying beneath a skeleton with legs that are wrapped with sticks of dynamite.

This painting is a “very personal” image, in which Kahlo “merges folkloric motifs from Mexican culture with European surrealism,” Anna Di Stasi, head of Latin American art at Sotheby’s, told AFP.

The Mexican artist, who died in 1954 aged 47, “did not completely agree” with her work being associated with the surrealist movement, Di Stasi said.

However, “given this magnificent iconography, it seems entirely appropriate to include it” in this movement.

The record-setting sale came two nights after the New York auction house reeled in another record sale, with a painting by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt fetching US$236.4m on the block – the second most expensive artwork ever sold at auction.

Klimt’s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, which he painted between 1914 and 1916, depicts the daughter of his main patron dressed in a white imperial Chinese dress, standing before a blue tapestry with Asian-inspired motifs.

The most expensive painting ever sold at auction remains Salvator Mundi, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, which was bought for US$450m in 2017.

– Agence France-Presse