A self-portrait by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo has been sold for $54.66 million at Sotheby's auction house in New York on Thursday, breaking the record for the most expensive painting ever created by a female artist. The artwork, titled "The Dream (The Bed)," surpassed the previous record held by American artist Georgia O'Keeffe, whose painting reached $44.4 million in 2014.
The painting was created in 1940, during what Sotheby's describes as "a crucial decade of her career, marked by her tumultuous relationship with Diego Rivera," the Mexican painter. The identity of the buyer has not been disclosed. The artwork depicts the artist sleeping in a bed that appears to float in the sky, overshadowed by an enormous skeleton whose legs are surrounded by dynamite sticks.
According to Anna Di Stasi, Sotheby's specialist in Latin American art, this Frida Kahlo painting is a "very personal" image in which "she merges folk motifs from Mexican culture with European surrealism." Di Stasi explained that the Mexican artist, who died in 1954 at the age of 47, "was not entirely in agreement" with having her work associated with the surrealist movement. However, "given this magnificent iconography, it seems quite relevant to include" her work in this artistic current.
Interestingly, the large skeleton depicted above the bed was not merely a product of imagination. According to Sotheby's, Frida Kahlo actually had a papier-mâché skeleton object hanging above her own bed. Pain and death were always central elements in her work, as Kahlo struggled throughout her life with declining health, marked by childhood polio and a serious bus accident in 1925 that left her with lifelong disabilities.
The painting was presented by the renowned auction house in its new flagship location in New York, the Breuer Building, a modernist Manhattan structure that has recently reopened to the public after serving as part of the Whitney Museum for many years. This sale marks a significant milestone in the art market, highlighting the growing recognition and value of works by female artists.
The women whose artworks have commanded the highest prices are primarily major figures of the 20th century. Besides the previous record held by Georgia O'Keeffe with "Jimson Weed / White Flower No.1" from 1932, the next highest sale was a gigantic "Spider" sculpture by French sculptor and artist Louise Bourgeois, sold for $32.5 million in 2023. Another Frida Kahlo self-portrait, "Diego y yo" ("Diego and Me," 1949), sold for $34.9 million in 2021, while "The Portrait of Marjorie Ferry" (1932) by Polish painter Tamara de Lempicka reached $21.2 million in 2020.
Other notable sales include Joan Mitchell's painting "Blueberry" from 1960, representing the American abstract expressionist movement, which sold for $16.6 million in 2018. Earlier or classical female artists rarely exceed the $10 million mark. "After Lunch" by Impressionist Berthe Morisot was sold for $10.9 million in 2013, Camille Claudel's sculpture "La Valse" was auctioned for 5.2 million euros the same year, and a painting by Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi depicting Lucretia was purchased for nearly 4.8 million euros in 2019.
The disparity in the art market remains stark when examining overall auction records. According to an AFP database, of all types of artworks combined, 162 had previously been sold for more than $50 million, and zero were created by women. Out of 468 works that exceeded $30 million, only four were by female artists, representing less than 1 percent of such high-value sales.
For context, a portrait painted by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt was sold for $236.4 million (204 million euros) by Sotheby's on Tuesday in New York, becoming the second most expensive artwork ever sold at auction. Only the "Salvator Mundi" attributed to Leonardo da Vinci has achieved a higher price, selling for $450 million (approximately 380 million euros at the time) in New York in 2017. This new record for Kahlo's work represents a significant step forward in recognizing the artistic and commercial value of female artists' contributions to art history.
