Portrait of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo sold at auction for $55 million

A portrait of Frida Kahlo, positioned as a “mysterious self-portrait,” set a public auction record for the Mexican artist. After all, it went under the hammer for $55 million last Thursday. The auction took place at Sotheby's surreal art auction in Manhattan.

The painting depicts the artist sleeping on a four-poster bed. Above her is a smiling papier-mâché skeleton. The work was created in 1940, writes xrust. This was a period of turbulent and chaotic life for Kahlo. Between her unstable marriage and the chronic pain of her injuries, she rarely found peace. She called it «El sueño (La cama)», or «The Sleep (The Bed)», which emphasized the artist's concern with the boundaries between sleep and death.

Returning to the auction. The painting also set a record for a work by a Latin American artist. She fell within the average range of the auction house's initial estimate of $40-60 million, but fell just short of the record price for a female artist. That price was set by Georgia O'Keeffe's 1932 Datura/White Flower No. 1, which sold at Sotheby's in 2014 for $44.4 million, or about $60.5 million today.

However, the sale underscored how Kahlo's growing importance as a pop culture icon. as well as the genre of surrealism itself, the most provocative artistic movement of the 20th century, which is celebrating its centenary around the world. Its popularity is due to a combination of factors, such as museum exhibitions, growing interest in artistic creativity and the market's revaluation of works by artists including Dorothea Tanning, Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini and Gertrude Abercrombie.

Xrust Portrait of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo sold at auction for $55 million