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Frida Kahlo "El Sueno" sold at Sotheby's for $54.7 million, a record for a woman artist at auction
21 November 2025
On November 20, Frida Kahlo's 1940 self-portrait "El sueño (La cama)" sold for $54.7 million. The painting was included in a New York Surrealist art auction at Sotheby's.
The painting was almost certain to surpass Kahlo's auction record of $34.9 million, which was set at Sotheby's New York in 2021 for the 1949 painting Diego y yo, due to its pre-sale estimate of $40 million to $60 million. At the time, the 1949 piece set a record for Latin American art, which "El sueño (La cama)" also surpassed.
Additionally, the painting broke the record for a female artist in general. Georgia O'Keeffe's "Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1" sold for $44.4 million at Sotheby's New York in 2014, setting a record for a female artist at auction.
The Kahlo piece was won for a phone bid by Anna Di Stasi, senior vice president of Sotheby's and head of the Latin American art department. It was hammered at $47 million, but after fees, it rose to $54.7 million.
"Diego y Yo" was acquired in 2021 by Eduardo Costantini, an Argentine collector who had previously acquired record-breaking pieces by Latin American Surrealists like Remedios Varo and Wifredo Lam. However, Costantini's representative told ARTnews that he did not purchase "El sueño (La cama)".
The buyer of "El sueño (La cama) was not identified by Sotheby's.
"El sueño (La cama)" is regarded by Kahlo as a crucial piece, despite being less well-known than some of her other pieces. Whitney Chadwick, an art historian, covered it in great detail in her seminal 1985 book Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement, which placed women at the center of a movement that had previously marginalized them long before it was fashionable. According to Chadwick, the piece demonstrates Kahlo's "identification with the Mexican belief in the indivisible unity of life and death" and the skeleton is lined with wires and explosives, suggesting the possibility of destruction.
Like many other women associated with Surrealism, Kahlo had a tense relationship with the male-dominated movement, as Chadwick noted. However, her and other women's works are increasingly common in Surrealism auctions; tonight's Sotheby's auction featured paintings by Kay Sage, Remedios Varo, and Valentine Hugo.
(taken from the Artnews article here)
Other info and a video at the link below.
For an interesting opinion about this event I suggest this article by the London-based art critic Eddy Frankel , published by Artnews a few days after the auction.
"Why I’m Not Celebrating Frida Kahlo’s $54.7 Million Auction Record
The historic sale of the artist's "El Sueño (La Cama)" may have set a new auction record for a woman artist, but it hardly represents cultural progress."
