{"id":276340,"date":"2025-11-10T22:35:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T22:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/276340\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T22:35:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T22:35:14","slug":"frida-kahlo-painting-could-sell-for-up-to-60-million-breaking-records-for-most-expensive-work-by-any-female-or-latin-american-artist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/276340\/","title":{"rendered":"Frida Kahlo painting could sell for up to $60 million, breaking records for most expensive work by any female or Latin American artist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Frida Kahlo\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0\u201cEl sue\u00f1o (La cama)\u201d \u2014 in English, \u201cThe Dream (The Bed)\u201d \u2014 is causing a stir among art historians as its estimated\u00a0$40 million to $60 million price tag<\/a>\u00a0would make it the most expensive work by any female or Latin American artist when it goes to auction later this month.<\/p>\n

Sotheby\u2019s auction house will put the painting up for sale on Nov. 20 in New York after exhibiting it in London, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong and Paris.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a moment of a lot of speculation,\u201d said Mexican art historian Helena Ch\u00e1vez Mac Gregor, a researcher at UNAM\u2019s Institute of Aesthetic Research and author of \u201cEl list\u00f3n y la bomba. El arte de Frida Kahlo.\u201d (The ribbon and the bomb. The art of Frida Kahlo).<\/p>\n

In Mexico, Kahlo\u2019s work is protected by a declaration of artistic monument, meaning pieces within the country cannot be sold or destroyed. However, works from private collections abroad \u2014 like the painting in question, whose owner remains unrevealed \u2014 are legally eligible for international sale.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe system of declaring Mexican modern artistic heritage is very anomalous,\u201d said Mexican curator Cuauht\u00e9moc Medina, an art historian and specialist in contemporary art.<\/p>\n

Judas in bed<\/p>\n

\u201cEl sue\u00f1o (La cama)\u201d was created in 1940 following Kahlo\u2019s trip to Paris, where she came into contact with the surrealists.<\/p>\n

Contrary to contemporary belief, the skull on the bed\u2019s canopy is not a\u00a0Day of the Dead<\/a>\u00a0skeleton, but a Judas \u2014 a handmade cardboard figure. Traditionally lit with gunpowder during Easter, this effigy symbolizes purification and the triumph of good over evil, representing Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus.<\/p>\n

In the painting, the skeleton is detailed with firecrackers, flowers on its ribs and a smiling grimace \u2014 a detail inspired by a cardboard skeleton Kahlo actually kept in the canopy of her own bed.<\/p>\n

Kahlo \u201cspent a lot of time in bed waiting for death,\u201d said Ch\u00e1vez Mac Gregor. \u201cShe had a very complex life because of all the illnesses and physical challenges with which she lived.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frida and surrealism<\/p>\n

Although Kahlo\u2019s painting is being auctioned alongside works by surrealists like\u00a0Salvador Dal\u00ed<\/a>, Ren\u00e9 Magritte, Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning, she did not consider herself a member of the movement, despite having met its founder, Andr\u00e9 Breton, in Mexico and had an exhibition organized by him in Paris in 1939.<\/p>\n

\u201cBreton was fascinated by Frida\u2019s work, because he saw that surrealist spirit there,\u201d said Ch\u00e1vez Mac Gregor.<\/p>\n

Kahlo, a committed communist, considered surrealism \u2014 a movement proposing a revolution of consciousness \u2014 to be bourgeois. As Ch\u00e1vez Mac Gregor noted, \u201cFrida always had a critical distance from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite this, specialists have found elements of surrealism in Kahlo\u2019s work related to the dreamlike, to an inner world and to a revolutionary and sexual freedom \u2014 a concept visible in a bed suspended in the sky with Kahlo sleeping among a vine.<\/p>\n

\u2018Crazy-priced purchases\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cEl sue\u00f1o (La cama)\u201d was last exhibited in the 1990s, and after the auction, it could disappear from public view once again, a fate shared by many paintings acquired for large sums at auction.<\/p>\n

There are exceptions, including \u201cDiego y yo\u201d (\u00a0\u201cDiego and I\u201d),<\/a>\u00a0which set Kahlo\u2019s record sale price when it sold for $34.9 million in 2021.<\/p>\n

The painting, depicting the artist and her husband\u00a0muralist Diego Rivera<\/a>, was acquired by Argentine business owner Eduardo Costantini and then lent to the Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires (Malba) where it remains on exhibit.<\/p>\n

Medina, the art historian, regretted that the \u201ccrazy-priced\u201d purchases have reduced art to a mere economic value.<\/p>\n

He lamented that when funds purchase art as mere investments \u2014 like buying shares in a public company \u2014 the works are often relegated to tax-free zones to avoid costs. Their fate, he said, \u201cmay be worse; they may end up in a refrigerator at Frankfurt airport for decades to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

A female artist<\/p>\n

The current sale record for a work by a female artist is held by Georgia O\u2019Keeffe\u2019s \u201cJimson Weed\/White Flower No. 1,\u201d which fetched $44.4 million at Sotheby\u2019s in 2014.<\/p>\n

However, the auction market still reflects a profound disparity as no female artist has yet exceeded the maximum sale price of a male artist. The current benchmark is \u201cSalvator Mundi,\u201d attributed to Leonardo<\/a> da Vinci<\/a>, which was auctioned by Christie\u2019s for\u00a0$450.3 million in 2017<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Frida Kahlo\u2019s\u00a0\u201cEl sue\u00f1o (La cama)\u201d \u2014 in English, \u201cThe Dream (The Bed)\u201d \u2014 is causing a stir among…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[11480,160273,73304,160274,449,458,459,64,63,460,134,2184],"class_list":{"0":"post-276340","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-art","9":"tag-art-auction","10":"tag-art-museums","11":"tag-art-sales","12":"tag-arts","13":"tag-arts-and-design","14":"tag-artsanddesign","15":"tag-au","16":"tag-australia","17":"tag-design","18":"tag-entertainment","19":"tag-mexico"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}