Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait Sells for $54.7 Million to Set Record for a Woman Artist

Overview

• Sotheby's sold the 1940 self-portrait El sueño (La cama) on November 20 after roughly four minutes of bidding in a surrealism sale, within a presale estimate of $40 million to $60 million.
• The result surpasses Georgia O’Keeffe’s $44.4 million benchmark from 2014 and eclipses Kahlo’s own previous high of $34.9 million for Diego y Yo in 2021.
• Sotheby’s has not identified the buyer, maintaining the secrecy that often surrounds high-end art transactions.
• The painting comes from a private collection outside Mexico, where patrimony laws limit export of works located in the country, making foreign-held Kahlo paintings especially scarce.
• Museums in New York, London and Brussels have requested loans of the work for future exhibitions, reflecting strong institutional interest after decades of limited public display.