In “El sueño (La cama)”, iconic artist Frida Kahlo depicts herself in a four-poster bed with vines growing across her blankets. Above the bed, a skeleton wrapped in dynamite, holding a bouquet of wild-looking flowers, reclines. This week, the painting broke records.
It sold for $54.7 million, making it the most valuable work by a woman artist ever sold at auction, according to Sotheby’s.
“Painted in 1940, a pivotal year in Kahlo’s life marked by her turbulent relationship with Diego Rivera and ongoing health challenges, the work has remained in the same private collection for 45 years,” said the auction house in a Facebook post. “The bed became a crucial symbol of challenge and resilience, providing the deeply personal setting for many of her self-portraits, while the skeleton which she kept above it served as a reminder of mortality and tradition.”
Kahlo, a Mexican artist known for her self portraits, died at age 47 in 1954. He life was marked by illness, from the polio she suffered from in childhood to a severe bus accident she lived through as a teen and 30 operations throughout her life. She began painting in 1925 and focused heavily on her art as she recovered in a body cast, said FridaKahlo.org.
“In meticulously executed paintings, Kahlo portrayed herself again and again, simultaneously exploring, questioning, and staging her self and identity. She also often evoked fraught episodes from her life, including her ongoing struggle with physical pain and the emotional distress caused by her turbulent relationship with celebrated painter Diego Rivera,” according to MoMA. It also noted that Kahlo resisted being labelled as a “surrealist” artist and instead said her paintings portrayed her reality.
Her work is celebrated for both its depiction of Mexican Indigenous themes and feminist themes.
In particular, “El sueño (La cama)” is described by Sotheby’s as one of Kahlo’s “most psychologically resonant and formally compelling works. Photographs from the auction house show Kahlo sitting near a four-poster bed with a what appears to be a skeleton sculpture atop it.
“Certainly, ‘El sueño (La cama)’ offers a spectral meditation on the porous boundary between sleep and death,” Sotheby’s said.
Per the auction house, the painting came from Galería Misrachi in Mexico City.