FRIDA KAHLO BREAKS WORLD RECORD WITH THE SALE OF EL SUEÑO (LA CAMA) FOR USD $54.6 MILLION
Frida Kahlo has once again shattered a historic milestone in the art market. One of her most enigmatic works has redefined the global value of female artistic creation.
A self-portrait by Frida Kahlo painted in 1940, El sueño (La cama), sold at Sotheby’s for $54.6 million, setting a new record for a work created by a woman and solidifying the Mexican artist as one of the most sought-after figures in the international art market. The sale far surpassed the previous record held by Georgia O’Keeffe, whose Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 reached $44.4 million in 2014.
The auction took place at The Breuer, Sotheby’s new headquarters in New York, and concluded in a matter of minutes. The buyer, whose identity was not disclosed, bid through Anna Di Stasi, head of the Latin American Art department. The auction house had estimated the work would sell for between $40 million and $60 million. The same painting had been previously sold at Sotheby’s in 1980 for $51,000 an almost symbolic sum compared with its current value.
El sueño (La cama), considered one of Kahlo’s most enigmatic and emotionally charged self-portraits, was created during an especially turbulent period in her life. That year, the artist faced the deterioration of her health marked by chronic pain resulting from the bus accident she survived in her youth and the instability of her relationship with Diego Rivera. The piece captures this emotional state through a symbolic composition centered around the bed, a recurring motif in her work due to the long periods she spent bedridden.
The painting depicts Kahlo lying under a golden coverlet wrapped in vines, while a life-size skeleton, bound with dynamite and holding a bouquet of flowers, rests across the bedposts. According to Sotheby’s, the figure represents a meditation on the boundary between sleep and death a theme that runs across much of her work. In Mexican tradition, the calaca does not symbolize terror but rather an intimate, inevitable presence, a characteristic that sets this piece apart from the Western canon.
The record set by El sueño (La cama) also surpasses the previous highest price paid for a Kahlo work: Diego y yo, sold in 2021 for $34.9 million. With this result, the Mexican artist now occupies two of the top three positions on the list of the most valuable works created by women. Following her is Untitled by Joan Mitchell, while among living artists, South African painter Marlen Dumas holds the highest price, with $13.6 million reached this year for Miss January.
Thursday’s auction also delivered notable results for other surrealist figures. American artist Dorothea Tanning achieved a personal record with Interior with Sudden Joy, which sold for $3.4 million. The same evening featured standout sales including Sans titre by Remedios Varo ($952,500), René Magritte’s La Révélation du présent ($2 million), and Salvador Dalí’s Symbiose de la tête aux coquillages ($4 million).
Kahlo’s work will soon travel to major international exhibitions, including Frida and Diego: The Last Dream at MoMA in New York in 2026 and Frida: The Making of an Icon at Tate Modern in London from 2026 to 2027, before continuing to museums in Basel, Bonn and Helsinki through 2028.