Kahlo's 'Bed of Dreams' breaks $55m record

A surreal self-portrait by iconic Mexican painter Frida Kahlo has sold for $54.7 million, smashing the auction record for any work by a female artist.

The 1940 painting, El sueno (La cama) — or 'The Dream (The Bed)' — fetched more than 1,000 times its original hammer price from 1980, after an intense bidding battle between two collectors at Sotheby's in New York.

The haunting work depicts Kahlo asleep in a floating wooden canopy bed, her figure draped beneath a skeleton entwined with dynamite, a stark emblem of mortality and personal turmoil.

Painted during a turbulent period marked by the assassination of a former lover and the aftermath of her divorce and remarriage, the piece is considered one of Kahlo's most psychologically charged self-portraits.

Kahlo, who died in 1954, is widely recognised as one of the 20th century's greatest painters, renowned for her deeply personal portraits that confront her physical suffering. Having been disabled by polio as a child and severely injured in a bus accident, she frequently used her art to express pain, resilience, and identity.

The new record eclipses the previous highest auction price for a female artist's work — Georgia O'Keeffe's 'Jimson Weed / White Flower No.1', which sold for $44 million in 2014 — as well as Kahlo's own record of $34.9 million set in 2021 for her painting 'Diego and I'.

Few works by Kahlo remain on the public market, as Mexican authorities designated her oeuvre as artistic monuments in the 1980s, restricting export and sale abroad.

Anna Di Stasi, Sotheby's head of Latin American art, hailed the result as a milestone. "This record-breaking sale shows just how far we have come, not only in our appreciation of Frida Kahlo's genius, but in the recognition of women artists at the very highest level of the market," she said.

Kahlo's extraordinary life and art have inspired global audiences for decades, including the 2002 biographical film starring Salma Hayek, which chronicled her complex marriage to muralist Diego Rivera and her lifelong struggle with physical pain.