Frida Kahlo’s El sueño (La cama) (1940) sold for $54.66 million at Sotheby’s on November 20th, breaking the auction record for a woman artist. El sueño (La cama) was part of Sotheby’s Exquisite Corpus Surrealism evening auction, which brought in $98.1 million. This self-portrait depicts the artist asleep in bed, covered in vines. Above the bed, a skeleton wired with dynamite is asleep, holding a bouquet of flowers.
This painting was made during a time of suffering for Kahlo. Her ex-lover Leon Trotsky was assassinated the year before this painting was completed, and in the same year, she was divorced from her husband, Diego Rivera.
Two collectors faced off in a 5-minute bidding war for the artwork. El sueño (La cama) was last seen at auction in 1980, when it sold at Sotheby’s for $51,000, meaning the new price is over 1000 times its previous sale. The sale of the work also breaks Kahlo’s auction record, which was set when Diego and I (1949) sold for $34.9 million at Sotheby’s in New York.
The previous auction record for a work by a woman artist is Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 (1932), which sold for $44 million at Sotheby’s in 2014. Although the figure is smaller, $44 million would be $60.5 million in today’s dollars after inflation.
“This record-breaking result 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,” Anna di Stasi, head of Latin American art at Sotheby’s, said in a statement.
Several other auction records were set during the Exquisite Corpus sale, including Dorothea Tanning’s Interior with Sudden Joy (1951), which sold for $3.22 million. Her auction record was set earlier this year by Endgame (1944), which sold for $2.35 million in May. Austrian Surrealist Wolfgang Paalen’s Fata Alaska (1937) sold for $1.06 million, beating the record set by Taches solaires (1938), which sold for $911,100 at Christie’s in 2023.
Two Hans Bellmer works broke his auction record in the same night. Les Bas rayés (1959) sold for $942,000. However, earlier in the night, Mains et bras (ca.1950–52) sold for $508,000. Both lots beat his previous record of $414,700, set by Milles filles (1939) at Sotheby’s in September.
The Surrealism sale was followed by Sotheby’s modern evening sale, a white glove sale that achieved $97 million. The leading lot for the sale was René Magritte’s Le Jockey Perdu (1942), which sold for $12.34 million, just above a $12 million high estimate.
