"The 1940 painting, showing Kahlo asleep in a bed floating among clouds, sold for $54.7 million (47 million), surpassing the $44.4 million paid at Sotheby's in 2014 for Georgia O'Keeffe's "Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1." The piece was one of the few Kahlo works still in private hands outside Mexico, where her art is protected as a national monument. This painting, held in an undisclosed private collection, was legally eligible for international sale."
"El Sueno was painted during a turning point in Kahlo's life, shaped by health problems from an earlier illness and accident and the upheaval of her divorce and remarriage to Diego Rivera in 1940. She contracted polio at the age of six and was injured so severely in a streetcar accident at 18 that she had to wear steel and leather corsets for the rest of her life. Confined to bed after the accident, Frida Kahlo began painting to pass the time."
"It was the beginning of an unprecedented career that made her Mexico's most famous artist. 'I never painted dreams,' she once said. 'I painted my own reality.' Thursday's sale also topped Kahlo's own auction record for a work by a Latin American artist. A painting depicting Kahlo and her husband sold in 2021 for $34.9 million, the previous highest price paid for her work, although her paintings are reported to have sold privately for even more."
Frida Kahlo's 1940 self-portrait El Sueño, depicting the artist asleep in a bed floating among clouds, sold for $54.7 million. The price surpassed the previous female-artist auction record of $44.4 million for Georgia O'Keeffe's Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1. The painting was one of the few Kahlo works outside Mexico remaining in private hands and was legally eligible for international sale. El Sueño was created during a turning point shaped by health problems, a streetcar accident, and the divorce and remarriage to Diego Rivera. Kahlo began painting while confined to bed and later became Mexico's most famous artist.
Read at www.dw.com
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