A self-portrait created in 1940 by the renowned Mexican artist Frida Kahlo was auctioned in New York for $54.7 million US ($77 million Cdn), setting a new record for the highest sale price of a piece by a female artist. The painting, titled “The Dream (The Bed),” depicts Kahlo asleep in a bed and surpassed the previous record held by Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1,” which sold for $44.4 million US in 2014.
Previously, the highest auction price for a Kahlo artwork was $34.9 million US (then $43.7 million Cdn) for “Diego and I,” a painting portraying the artist alongside her husband, Diego Rivera. While her works in Mexico are safeguarded as artistic treasures and cannot be sold overseas or destroyed, this particular self-portrait belonged to a private collection outside the country and is eligible for international sale.
There has been scrutiny from art historians regarding the auction, with concerns raised about the potential cultural implications and the artwork’s accessibility to the public. Despite being last exhibited publicly in the late 1990s, the painting has garnered interest for upcoming exhibitions in various cities, including New York, London, and Brussels.
The self-portrait captures Kahlo in a surreal setting, asleep in a colonial-style bed surrounded by floating clouds. Wrapped in a golden blanket and entwined with vines and leaves, a skeleton figure with dynamite lies above her. Kahlo’s art vividly reflects events from her tumultuous life, beginning with a severe bus accident at 18 that led to numerous surgeries and lifelong pain until her death at 47. Confined to her bed for years, she explored themes of mortality and existence through her paintings.
The auction also includes over 100 surrealist works by artists such as Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Max Ernst, and Dorothea Tanning, although Kahlo resisted being categorized as a surrealist. She once declared, “I never painted dreams; I painted my own reality.” Sotheby’s described the self-portrait as a contemplation on the fine line between sleep and death, symbolizing Kahlo’s anxiety about mortality due to her chronic pain and traumatic past.
