Frida Khalo’s 1940 self-portrait “The Dream (The Bed)”El sueño (La cama) sold for $54.7 million on November 20. The painting was part of a Sotheby’s sale of Surrealist art in New York.
It sees Kahlo lying on a bed that floats against the backdrop of a pale blue sky. Curling green vines envelop her body, while a skeleton wired with dynamite and holding a bouquet of dried flowers lies above her.
Kahlo painted the piece in 1940, which was a turbulent time for the Mexican artist. It was the year that she remarried Diego Rivera after divorcing the fellow artist a year earlier, and was also the year that her former lover, the Russian revolutionary Leon Trosky, was assassinated.
he existing record held by the late American artist Georgia O’Keeffe. Her “Jimson Weed/White Flower No.1,” which had previously hung in the White House, sold for $44.4 million in 2014.
Kahlo’s previous auction record of $34.9 million was held by 1949 painting Diego y yo, set at Sotheby’s New York in 2021, . The 1949 work broke the record at the time for a Latin American artwork, which El sueño (La cama) now holds.
