Frida Kahlo's Self-Portrait

This self-portrait of Frida Kahlo could become the most expensive work painted by a woman.
The painting will be auctioned in November in New York City. Experts say it could break three records for sale price.
If Frida Kahlo became a legend, it wasn't only because of the photographs taken by Nikolas Muray between 1937 and 1946, thanks to which her unmistakable face was etched in the collective imagination, but also (or rather, rather) because of her power to convey emotions through brush, paint, and canvas: it is impossible, in her case, to separate the work from the artist.

It was precisely during those years that she painted The Dream (1940), perhaps one of her most personal pieces. We could say that observing it leads us to Kahlo's most intimate moments, those in which she nurtured—as usual in her paintings—her connection with death. She may never have imagined that the painting would be auctioned today in New York, the city where she lived while Diego Rivera was painting his failed Rockefeller Center mural.

The auction will take place in early November at Sotheby's new headquarters on the Upper East Side, and the collection will also include pieces by Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, and Max Ernst. But perhaps the most striking aspect of the news is its sale price: experts estimate that it will surpass the artist's own record, held by "Diego and I," which was purchased for $34.9 million, and also the record for a female artist.
Why this is her most personal work

If Diego and I—which, for the moment, remains the most expensive work of Latin American art—showed us the emotional intensity and turbulence of the relationship between Frida and Diego Rivera, El sueño invites us to reflect intimately on life and death: the piece combines, of course, personal symbolism, but also those elements of Mexican culture so prevalent in the artist's artistic career.
The bed, a central element in Frida's life due to her multiple illnesses and accidents, becomes here a representation of the most transcendental moments of existence: birth, illness, artistic creation, and death. The vines climbing her body represent life, while the explosives on the skeleton suggest the constant threat of death. The clouds, meanwhile, reinforce the dreamlike atmosphere.
Overall, the work is not a morbid portrait, but a poetic and powerful representation of the duality between life and death, so present in Mexican culture and in the artist's biography. As usual, Frida transforms her physical and emotional pain into art, and in The Dream, she achieves a visual synthesis of her life experience, marked by suffering, but also by a deep connection with her roots and her identity.
The Dream, up for auction

The price record for women artists is held by Georgia O'Keefe with her painting Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1, which fetched $44.4 million in 2014. However, now, according to experts, Frida Kahlo could overtake her: The Dream is estimated to sell for between $50 and $60 million. And if this piques your curiosity about the most expensive works of art in the world, we'll answer them here.

From the 20th century to the present day, Novembers in New York have been marked by activity at the major auction houses. The 2025 award, however, will be special, because the Mexican artist of artists, who died in 1954 (but will be remembered forever), could win three at the same time: her own, the women's, and the Latin American.

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