The 1940 painting, titled El sueño (la cama), which translates as 'The Dream (The Bed)” in English, shows Frida Kahlo asleep in a four-poster bed with a skeleton wrapped in dynamite above her. It sold at Sotheby’s in New York on November 20 for $54.7 million after a tense four-minute bidding contest between two collectors.
"Few could have imagined El sueño (la cama) would eventually sell for $55m when it was first went under the hammer at Sotheby's for $51,000 in 1980," commented Anna Di Stasi, the auction house's head of Latin American art.
El sueño (la cama) is one of the few works by Kahlo available on the international market, since Mexican authorities in the 1980s designated her work as part of the country’s national artistic heritage.
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The sale surpasses the previous record for a female artist, held by Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed / White Flower No.1, which sold for $44.4 million in 2014. It also breaks Kahlo’s own record, set by Diego y yo (Diego and I) from 1949, which sold for $34.9 million in 2021.
Sotheby’s has not yet disclosed the buyer of El sueño (la cama), which had been valued at between $40 million and $60 million.
