Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait Breaks Historic Auction Record With $54.6M

Frida Kahlo’s 1940 self-portrait “El Sueño (The Dream)” sold for $54.66 million at Sotheby’s in New York, setting a new world record for the highest price ever paid for a work by a woman artist.

The surreal and deeply personal painting—created during a turbulent period in Kahlo’s relationship with Diego Rivera—depicts the artist floating in a dreamlike sky beneath a skeleton wrapped in dynamite, blending Mexican folkloric symbolism with European surrealist elements.

The sale surpassed the previous record held by Georgia O’Keeffe and follows another blockbuster auction this week in which a Gustav Klimt portrait sold for $236.4 million, the second most expensive artwork ever auctioned.

Kahlo’s record demonstrates the growing global demand for iconic works and the enduring power of her legacy.