{"id":167756,"date":"2025-09-19T14:23:04","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T14:23:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/167756\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T14:23:04","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T14:23:04","slug":"frida-kahlo-portrait-could-sell-for-60-million-and-shatter-records-at-sothebys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/167756\/","title":{"rendered":"Frida Kahlo portrait could sell for $60 million and shatter records at Sotheby&#8217;s"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">LONDON &#8212; LONDON (AP) \u2014 <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/frida-kahlo-art-mexican-artist-spiritual-fd536219e1348b19b50bc5027bc98bda\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Frida Kahlo\u2019s<\/a> face is one of the best known in art, thanks to her bold and challenging self-portraits.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">A lesser-seen self-depiction by the <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/frida-documentary-a2a955be323fd1cc6319bd3ec3b2cbae\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mexican artist<\/a> is going up for auction at Sotheby\u2019s in what could be a record-setting sale.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">With an estimated price of $40 million to $60 million, \u201cEl sue\u00f1o (La cama)\u201d \u2013 \u201cThe Dream (The Bed)\u201d may surpass the top price for a work by any female artist when it goes under the hammer on Nov. 8. That record currently stands at $44.4 million, paid at Sotheby\u2019s in 2014 for Georgia O\u2019Keefe\u2019s \u201cJimson Weed\/White Flower No. 1.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The highest price at auction for a Kahlo work is $34.9 million, paid in 2021 for <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/lifestyle-arts-and-entertainment-new-york-painting-diego-rivera-36f0645f90598b47e3a6e82e6d1959fe\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cDiego and I,\u201d<\/a> depicting the artist and her husband, <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/mural-exhibit-history-mexico-city-art-c157baef27773d1eb04813f3e26b3c68\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">muralist Diego Rivera<\/a>. Her paintings are reported to have sold privately for even more.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cIt&#8217;s not just one of the more important works by Kahlo, but one of a few that exists outside of Mexico and not in a museum collection,\u201d said Julian Dawes, vice-chairman and head of impressionist and modern art for Sotheby\u2019s Americas. &#8220;So as both a work of art and as an opportunity in the market, it could not be more rare and special.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Kahlo vibrantly and unsparingly depicted herself and events from her life, which was upended by a bus accident at 18. She started to paint while bedridden, underwent a series of painful surgeries on her damaged spine and pelvis, then wore casts until her death in 1954 at age 47.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Painted in 1940, \u201cEl sue\u00f1o (La cama)\u201d shows the artist, wreathed in vines, lying in a four-poster bed floating in a pale blue sky. A skeleton wired with dynamite and clutching a bouquet of flowers lies atop the canopy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The image is exploding with symbolism and feels like an allegory \u2013 but the artist really did have a skeleton on top of her bed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Dawes said it&#8217;s a psychological self-portrait by an artist at her peak.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cHer greatest works derive from this moment between the late 1930s and the early 1940s,\u201d he said. \u201cShe has had a variety of tribulations in her romantic life with Diego, in her own life with her health, but at the same time she\u2019s really at the height of her powers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Last exhibited publicly in the late 1990s, the painting is the star of a sale of more than 100 surrealist works by artists including Salvador Dal\u00ed, Ren\u00e9 Magritte, Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning. They are from a private collection whose owner has not been disclosed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">A century after Andre Breton\u2019s \u201cSurrealist Manifesto\u201d defined a revolutionary artistic movement characterized by unsettling juxtapositions and paradoxical statements, interest in \u2013 and prices for \u2013 surrealist art are booming. Surrealism\u2019s share of the art market rose from 9.3% to 16.8% between 2018 and 2024, according to Sotheby\u2019s. <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/video\/maurizio-cattelan-david-hockney-rene-magritte-david-galperin-new-york-99be3ca7f94346068330cb868263d355\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Magritte\u2019s \u201cL\u2019empire des lumi\u00e8res\u201d<\/a> sold last year for $121.2 million, a record for a surrealist work.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Kahlo resisted being labelled a surrealist, but Dawes said her \u201cfascination with the subconscious\u201d and use of otherworldly imagery place her squarely in that tradition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">He said it\u2019s no surprise the genre is undergoing a resurgence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cThere are so many interesting parallels between the 1920s and the 2020s,\u201d Dawes said. \u201cComing out of a crippling global pandemic, a world that has to confront war on a more graphic and intimate level that had ever been experienced before \u2014 and economic and political and social forces swirling in the background that are eerily similar.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">The Kahlo painting is on show at Sotheby\u2019s in London until Tuesday, and then tours to Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong and Paris before the sale in New York.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON &#8212; LONDON (AP) \u2014 Frida Kahlo\u2019s face is one of the best known in art, thanks to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[101000,966,228,226,227,229,88,793,1033,42793,965],"class_list":{"0":"post-167756","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-101000","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-arts","11":"tag-arts-and-design","12":"tag-artsanddesign","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-general-news","16":"tag-painting","17":"tag-visual-arts","18":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}