Frida Kahlo: “El sueño (la cama)” reaches record price at auction

A large painting by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo has been auctioned in New York for more than $50 million. The self-portrait “El sueño (la cama)” (The Dream/The Room) from 1940 achieved a record earnings of 54.6 million dollars (about 47.4 million euros) on Thursday, as announced by the auction house Sotheby’s. Never before has a female artist’s work reached such high auction prices.

The work shows the artist sleeping on a bed that seems to be floating in the sky. On the bed is a large skeleton whose legs are wrapped in dynamite. The auction house initially did not provide any information about the buyer.

Skeletons above beds don’t just exist in paintings: according to Sotheby’s, Frida Kahlo actually had a cardboard object of this type hanging above her bed.

The painting by Frida Kahlo is a “very personal” image in which “she combines folklore motifs from Mexican culture with European surrealism,” Anna Di Stasi of the Latin American art department at Sotheby’s told AFP.

Kahlo, who died in 1954 at the age of 47, “didn’t fully agree” with her work being associated with a surrealist style, the expert added. But “given this great iconography,” it seemed “very reasonable to include them in the movement.”

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), known for her extravagant style, is considered one of the great painters of the 20th century. He is also one of the most important artists in Latin America. In many of his photographs, including many self-portraits, he processed personal experiences.

One of Kahlo’s most famous self-portraits is the painting “Diego y yo” (Diego and I) from 1949. The self-portrait shows the face of her husband Diego Rivera on the artist’s forehead. It was auctioned for $34.9 million at Sotheby’s auction in New York in 2021.

Pain and death are also central to Kahlo’s work. The painter struggled with poor health throughout his life. After a serious accident, she was strapped into a corset and had to undergo multiple operations.

The previous high price of $44.4 million was achieved at a New York auction in 2014 for the oil painting “Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1” by US painter Georgia O’Keeffe, one of the most famous US painters of the 20th century. Other artists whose works have been auctioned for double-digit millions include Polish painter Tamara de Lempicka and US painter Joan Mitchell.