Will this Frida Kahlo work fetch a record-breaking $60m at auction? Experts weigh in
Frida Kahlo work could break records with $60m price tag
- Frida Kahlo's painting El sueño (La cama) is scheduled for auction by Sotheby's on 20 November in New York, with an estimated value between $40 million and $60 million.
- The sale could establish a new record for the most expensive work ever sold by a female or Latin American artist, potentially exceeding Georgia O’Keeffe’s previous record of $44.4 million.
- Created in 1940, the painting features a Judas figure on the bed's canopy, symbolising purification, rather than a traditional Day of the Dead skeleton.
- Despite its surrealist elements and being auctioned alongside works by surrealist artists, Kahlo, a committed communist, did not identify with the movement, considering it bourgeois.
- Art historians express concern that high-value art purchases often result in works disappearing from public view, as they are acquired as investments rather than for public exhibition.