Good Morning!
- Frida Kahlo’s 1940 work El sueño (La cama) sold for $54.7 million at Sotheby’s on Thursday, setting the auction record for a woman artist.
- Louvre director Laurence des Cars sits down for one of her first major interviews since last month’s heist.
- Dorothy Vogel, an influential art collector and major National Gallery donor, has died at the age of 90.
The Headlines
DREAM RESULT FOR KAHLO. Records continue to fall at New York art week. This most recent tumbled on Thursday evening at Sotheby’s, when Frida Kahlo’s 1940 self-portrait El sueño (La cama) sold for $54.7 million (with fees). It’s the highest price paid for a woman artist at auction, ARTnews reported. It overtook the $44.4 million record set in 2014 by Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1. Kahlo’s painting landed just shy of its $60 million high estimate, and sailed past her previous auction record of $34.9 million, set in 2021 for her 1949 work Diego y yo. The work was won by Sotheby’s executive Anna Di Stasi on behalf of a phone bidder. Sotheby’s has not disclosed the new owner’s identity. Consigned by the estate of Selma Ertegun, the painting shows Kahlo lying on a floating bed topped by a skeleton, an image linked to her habit of sleeping beneath a papier-mâché skeleton.
UNDER FIRE. Louvre director Laurence des Cars, the museum’s first woman president in its 230-year history, sat down for an interview with The New York Times this week—one of her first since last month’s robbery. In it, des Cars revealed that she offered to resign on the afternoon of the heist, an offer denied by the Minister of Culture. She also pushed back on claims that she had neglected the museum’s security, saying she had helped devise a master plan but that the Louvre’s scale and slow-moving bureaucracy meant such changes require multiple stages of review. “This is not a private museum. This is a public museum that needs to submit to every control,” she said. The bitter irony: the new security plan—set to add 100 cameras to the museum’s perimeter—was in the process of being implemented when the thieves struck. Talk about bad timing.
The Digest
Dorothy Vogel, an influential art collector and major National Gallery donor, has died at the age of 90. She was also an ARTnewsTop 200 Collector. [Washington Post]
Two UK museums are closing next month due to low footfall and rising costs. They are the Quaker Tapestry Museum in Kendal and the Museum of Carpet in Kidderminster. [Museums Association]
All eyes might be on New York, but in Canada, Heffel’s fall sales, including auction of art from collection of the country’s oldest company, tallied $22.1 million. [The Art Newspaper]
England has 27 percent fewer art teachers today than in 2011, and far fewer students are choosing arts subjects, creating a profession that is vital yet increasingly undervalued. [The Guardian]
Stockholm’s Market Art Fair, the Nordic region’s longest-running art fair—and the world’s northernmost international art fair—will celebrate 20 years on April 23-26, in 2026. [Market Art Fair]
An anonymous bidder has won the final solution of Jim Sanborn’s CIA sculpture for $962,500, just two months after two men discovered the solution hiding in the Smithsonian’s archives. [New York Times]
The Kicker
OLD BONE(S) TO PICK. The Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi (NHMAD) opens its doors to the public on November 22. It is dedicated to telling the story of the planet. NHMAD’s centerpiece is “Stan,” one of the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons ever discovered. National Geographic was given early access to the museum, and writes that the 38-foot giant is displayed in a dramatic way, as part of the world’s first exhibition showing two T-rexes locked in battle. “Stan” is just one highlight in a series of dynamic megafauna displays, which also feature a newly restored blue-whale skeleton and a rare four-tusked elephant unearthed in Abu Dhabi, all presented using the latest paleontological research.
Have a great weekend!
