{"id":164691,"date":"2025-12-02T18:17:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T18:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/164691\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T18:17:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T18:17:10","slug":"frida-kahlos-record-breaking-painting-was-a-gift-for-a-us-photographer-who-was-her-lover-for-10-years-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/164691\/","title":{"rendered":"Frida Kahlo\u2019s record-breaking painting was a gift for a US photographer who was her lover for 10 years | Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Frida Kahlo\u2019s 1940 painting \u201cThe Dream (The Bed)\u201d is no ordinary work of art. And the recent auction where it fetched $54.66 million, making it the most expensive artwork by a woman ever sold at auction, proves it. Behind this representation, which, according to Sotheby\u2019s, \u201cencapsulates her lifelong preoccupation with mortality, physicality, and the emotional complexities of selfhood,\u201d lies a story that describes the painting\u2019s abrupt departure from Mexico<\/a>, against the backdrop of a romantic disappointment. <\/p>\n

Professor Luis-Mart\u00edn Lozano, a historian of Mexican and Latin American art, explains in a video call with EL PA\u00cdS that the artwork, which he describes as \u201ca complex self-portrait,\u201d left the country between the 1940s and 1950s, before the government decree in 1984 that declared Frida Kahlo\u2019s complete works an Artistic Monument of the Nation and prohibited the export of her creations. Kahlo\u2019s intention was to get rid of a gift she had painted for the American photographer Nickolas Muray, who had been her lover for 10 years and who, in 1939, announced to her that he was going to get married.<\/p>\n

Those years were not easy for the artist. Having just arrived from Paris<\/a> in 1939, Kahlo received devastating news. \u201cDiego Rivera asked her for a divorce, and Frida was heartbroken because she didn\u2019t understand why. They had an open relationship: she knew he was seeing many women; he, in turn, suspected she had lovers. It wasn\u2019t a conventional relationship, but the point is that she had to make her own way and was prepared to do so,\u201d explains Lozano. And she had reason to believe. She had just had a solo exhibition in New York where she had sold several works, the Louvre Museum had bought one of her paintings during her trip to the French capital, and, moreover, she had Nick. \u201cHe was a support, a man who loved her and asked for nothing in return,\u201d the expert says, adding: \u201cSort of, because, in reality, Nick would have married Frida if she had had the strength to leave Diego<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The news of Muray\u2019s marriage caught Kahlo off guard, as she was about to finish \u201cThe Dream (The Bed),\u201d a gift to thank him for his emotional and financial support over the years. \u201cIt\u2019s a painting that deals with dreams, yes, but it also relates to that reality constructed in Frida Kahlo\u2019s subconscious. What happens in that constructed reality? She has peace: she\u2019s detached from the conflict of Rivera\u2019s divorce, detached from the conflict of her illness and her pain<\/a>, and she\u2019s at peace when she\u2019s with Nick, because she\u2019s very happy with Nick Muray.\u201d But that happiness crumbled with the announcement of the upcoming nuptials, so that painting, with its profound significance for her, had to go.<\/p>\n

According to the art specialist, in 1939, the Mexican painter told the photographer that she had been forced to sell the work to the Misrachi Gallery in Mexico City due to an urgent need for money, but this was a lie: the letter is from 1939, while the canvas is dated 1940. \u201cIn other words, she hadn\u2019t finished it when she wrote that fictitious letter to Nick,\u201d says Lozano, who suggests that Kahlo didn\u2019t want to give the painting to Muray because \u201che was going to get married and then he would no longer be the recipient of that message\u201d of gratitude and affection with which she had created it. According to the art historian\u2019s research, the Mexican artist continued to offer \u201cThe Dream (The Bed)\u201d to her American collector friends for $400, even after she had led the photographer to believe she no longer had it.<\/p>\n

Nickolas Muray and Frida Kahlo in an undated photograph. Museo Frida Kahlo<\/p>\n

At some point, the painting was indeed exhibited for sale at the Misrachi Gallery, where it was acquired by a man named Luis de Hoyos. \u201cWe don\u2019t know much about him. What we do know is that he came to Mexico and that he loved to fish,\u201d Lozano remarks. And it is precisely De Hoyos who, in a way, explains the painting\u2019s subsequent appearance outside the country. \u201cWhen he died at his home in the United States, near New York, this was one of the paintings that were handed to Sotheby\u2019s for auction,\u201d the expert recounts. The rest is history. On May 9, 1980, the auction house sold it to a private buyer, and last November 20, the canvas was seen again after 45 years. A triumphant return that not only broke records but also confirms the attraction and fascination that the Mexican artist evokes worldwide.<\/p>\n

Anna Di Stasi, director of Latin American Art at Sotheby\u2019s, told EL PA\u00cdS by phone that there is \u201ca universal emotional state\u201d in the artist\u2019s paintings. \u201cFrida Kahlo continues to have a very direct, very emotional connection across generations with different women, in different countries, and with different people,\u201d she explained. For Di Stasi, \u201cthe reaction to her [Kahlo] is always emotional,\u201d which goes hand in hand with the \u201cfascination with her work and her life.\u201d \u201cIt is one of her most surreal paintings, and it is understood that it is not just a portrait of her or her face; it is rather a portrait of her emotional state and her relationship with death. It is a highly psychoanalytic work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Di Stasi is not surprised by the success of \u201cThe Dream (The Bed).\u201d \u201cWe\u2019ve been building an art market primarily led by women for a decade now, many of them Latin American, who have found significant exposure for their artistic production at prices unthinkable 15 years ago,\u201d she explains. The Sotheby\u2019s Senior Vice President also believes that \u201cthese auctions establish an understanding that didn\u2019t exist before about the region and the cultural heritage of a continent.\u201d Furthermore, although she believes the art market<\/a> fluctuates and \u201chas preferences just like the design market,\u201d for her, the important thing is to remain part of the conversation. Regarding the specific moment this record was reached, and what this says about the value placed on these types of works, she concludes: \u201cI don\u2019t know if we\u2019re late to the party, but I imagine it\u2019s better late than never.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/a> to get more English-language news coverage from EL PA\u00cdS USA Edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Frida Kahlo\u2019s 1940 painting \u201cThe Dream (The Bed)\u201d is no ordinary work of art. And the recent auction…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,38503,156,25380,6820,107834,111,139,69,6943,7928],"class_list":{"0":"post-164691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-diego-rivera","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-frida-kahlo","16":"tag-mexico","17":"tag-museo-del-louvre","18":"tag-new-zealand","19":"tag-newzealand","20":"tag-nz","21":"tag-paris","22":"tag-sothebys"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}