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Frida Kahlo

Agence France-Presse

<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1763776481947584874784_1202898611945199_4967055143150685006_n.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/>Frida Kahlo&#x27;s &quot;El sueno (La cama).&quot; Sotheby&#x27;s/Facebook</div>NEW YORK — A self-portrait by celebrated Mexican artist Frida Kahlo sold for $54.66 million in New York on Thursday, setting a record for the price of a painting by a woman, the auction house Sotheby&#x27;s said.The sale of Kahlo&#x27;s 1940 artwork, titled &quot;El sueno (La cama)&quot; -- which translates to &quot;The dream (The bed)&quot; -- broke the previous record set by American artist Georgia O&#x27;Keeffe, whose 1932 painting &quot;Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1&quot; sold for $44.4 million in 2014.Kahlo&#x27;s painting is &quot;the most valuable work by a woman artist ever sold at auction,&quot; Sotheby&#x27;s said in a post on social media platform X.The artwork depicts Kahlo sleeping in a bed that appears to float through the sky, beneath a skeleton with its legs wrapped in sticks of dynamite.The work was painted during a pivotal decade in Kahlo&#x27;s career, marked by her turbulent relationship with Mexican painter Diego Rivera, the auction house said on X.The painting went on the auction block with an estimated price range of $40 million to $60 million.The buyer&#x27;s name was not disclosed.The work is a &quot;very personal&quot; painting, in which Kahlo &quot;merges folkloric motifs from Mexican culture with European surrealism,&quot; Anna Di Stasi, the head of Latin American art at Sotheby&#x27;s, told AFP.The Mexican artist, who died in 1954 at the age of 47, &quot;did not completely agree&quot; with her work being associated with the surrealist movement, Di Stasi said.However, &quot;given this magnificent iconography, it seems entirely appropriate to include it,&quot; she said.Kahlo struggled with fragile health throughout her life due to childhood illness, polio and a serious bus accident in 1925, and pain and death were central to her work.The skeleton depicted in the painting echoed the papier-mache version that hung above Kahlo&#x27;s bed, according to Sotheby&#x27;s.<div> </div><div>Women under-represented</div>None of the 162 pieces of art that had previously sold for more than $50 million were by women, according to an AFP tally. Less than one percent of the 468 works sold for more than $30 million are by women artists.The record-setting sale of Kahlo&#x27;s self-portrait came two nights after Sotheby&#x27;s made another record sale, with <a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/lifestyle/people-culture-events/2025/11/19/klimt-portrait-becomes-second-most-expensive-artwork-sold-at-auction-1929">a painting by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt fetching $236.4 million</a> -- the second-most expensive artwork ever sold at auction.Klimt&#x27;s &quot;Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer,&quot; which he painted between 1914 and 1916, depicts the daughter of his main patron standing in front of a blue tapestry.The most expensive painting ever sold at auction remains the &quot;Salvator Mundi,&quot; (Savior of the World), a Renaissance work attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, which was bought for $450 million in 2017.Female artists whose works have fetched the highest sale prices are primarily prominent 20th century figures.The third-highest sale price, after O&#x27;Keeffe&#x27;s White Flower No. 1,&quot; was for a huge spider sculpture by French visual artist Louise Bourgeois, which sold for $32.5 million in 2023.Kahlo&#x27;s self-portrait &quot;Diego y yo&quot; (&quot;Diego and I&quot;, 1949) fetched $34.9 million in 2021 and &quot;Portrait of Marjorie Ferry&quot; (1932) by the Polish painter Tamara de Lempicka was sold for $21.2 million in 2020.

A self-portrait by celebrated Mexican artist Frida Kahlo sold for $54.66 million in New York on Thursday, setting a record for the price of a painting by a woman, the auction house Sotheby's said.

A self-portrait by celebrated Mexican artist Frida Kahlo sold for $54.66 million in New York on Thursday, setting a record for the price of a painting by a woman, the auction house Sotheby's said.

Frida Kahlo painting sells for $54.7M in record for female artist

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Frida Kahlo painting sells for $54.7M in record for female artist

Agence France-Presse

Published Nov 22, 2025 09:59 AM PHT

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Frida Kahlo

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Sotheby's

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