Frida Kahlo’s 1940 self-portrait El sueño (La cama) sold for $54.7 million at Sotheby’s in New York, setting a new auction record for female artists. This surpassed the 2014 record held by Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1, sold for $44.4 million, and also exceeded Kahlo’s own 2021 auction record of $34.9 million for Diego and I, depicting her husband Diego Rivera.
The painting, long held in a private collection and last publicly shown in the late 1990s, had already attracted attention in the art world before the auction. Most of Kahlo’s works in Mexico are protected under the country’s “cultural heritage” status and cannot be sold abroad, making this piece one of the rare works legally available on the international market.
A Vision Between Sleep, Death, and Pain
The portrait depicts Kahlo lying in a wooden bed, floating among the clouds. Draped in a golden blanket and surrounded by crawling vines, she appears suspended between dream and reality. Above the bed, a skeleton perched on the bedposts—wrapped with dynamite—symbolizes both her fear of death and the physical pain she endured throughout her life.
According to Sotheby’s catalog, the painting offers “an imagined meditation on the porous boundary between sleep and death.” Considering the surgeries and long recovery periods she endured after a bus accident, these dramatic symbols clearly reflect her personal reality. Kahlo herself rejected the surrealist label, stating, “I never painted dreams; I painted my own reality.”
The sale raises both hope and questions about when the work might again be publicly exhibited. The piece has already been requested for upcoming exhibitions in New York, London, and Brussels, though the identity of the buyer remains undisclosed.
