Frida Kahlo Painting Shatters Auction Records at Sotheby’s

An electric 5-minute bidding war between two collectors at Sotheby’s saw Frida Kahlo’s El sueño (La cama) achieve over 1,000 times what it sold for in 1980. With a final sale price of $54.7 million, the painting established a new auction record for Kahlo. It also marks the highest sale price ever for any work by a woman artist sold at auction, a record previously set by Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower no. 1.

“When this painting sold at Sotheby’s in 1980 for $51,000, few could have imagined it returning 45 years later to command $55 million,” says Anna Di Stasi, Head of Latin American Art, Sotheby’s. “ This record-breaking result shows just how far we have come, not only in our appreciation of Frida Kahlo’s genius, but in the recognition of women artists at the very highest level of the market.”

The painting, completed in 1940, and in a private collection since its 1980 sale, came at a pivotal time in Kahlo’s life, as it was the same year her former lover Leon Trotsky was assassinated, she underwent an acrimonious divorce, her health was deteriorating, and she remarried Diego Rivera. It’s described by Sotheby’s as a psychologically charged and symbolically rich self-portrait of Kahlo.

“In El sueño, Kahlo confronts her own fragility, yet what emerges is a portrait of extraordinary resilience and strength,” adds Di Stasi. “It is an enduring testament to one of the most admired and sought-after artists of our time.”

Thursday’s record-setting sale, part of the Exquisite Corpus collection, comes days after another monumental moment at Sotheby’s, which saw the inaugural evening sale at the newly unveiled Breuer Building sell Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer for $236.4 million.