Mexico
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : Central and South Americas Women artists Self portrait Self portrait II Man and woman
Chronology : 1931 1933 1940-1949 1940 1945 1949
See also : Central and South Americas Women artists Self portrait Self portrait II Man and woman
Chronology : 1931 1933 1940-1949 1940 1945 1949
Intro
One of the root causes of the Mexican Revolution was the need to create a social identity that autocratic regimes could not offer.
In 1921, José Vasconcelos creates the Secretariat of Public Education. The population is mostly illiterate. Vasconcelos is developing the project to decorate public buildings with large murals promoting revolution and atheism as well as an egalitarian Mestizoism.
The participation of Vasconcelos in the government was short-lived but the best specificity of Mexican art in the twentieth century is a result of this initiative, not only through the social frescoes by Rivera, Orozco and Siqueiros, but also with the surrealism by Kahlo and Carrington which benefited from this tendency to stylize for educating.
In 1921, José Vasconcelos creates the Secretariat of Public Education. The population is mostly illiterate. Vasconcelos is developing the project to decorate public buildings with large murals promoting revolution and atheism as well as an egalitarian Mestizoism.
The participation of Vasconcelos in the government was short-lived but the best specificity of Mexican art in the twentieth century is a result of this initiative, not only through the social frescoes by Rivera, Orozco and Siqueiros, but also with the surrealism by Kahlo and Carrington which benefited from this tendency to stylize for educating.
KAHLO
Intro
Frida Kahlo: A Psychiatric Lens on Her Life and Art
Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) was a Mexican painter whose work is deeply autobiographical, transforming profound physical and emotional suffering into vivid, symbolic art. Her life was marked by trauma, chronic pain, and psychological distress, which scholars and psychobiographers have analyzed through frameworks like psychoanalysis, attachment theory, art therapy, and feminist psychology. While retrospective psychiatric diagnoses are speculative, evidence from her biography, diary, and paintings suggests experiences consistent with chronic pain syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depressive episodes, and possible bipolar traits. Her art served as a therapeutic outlet, promoting resilience amid adversity.
Key Traumatic Events and Mental Health Impacts
Kahlo's psychological struggles stemmed from cumulative traumas:
Psychological Themes in Her Art
About one-third of Kahlo's 143 paintings are self-portraits, often using surreal symbolism to externalize inner turmoil. She rejected the "surrealist" label, insisting she painted her reality. Common motifs include:
The Broken Column (1944)
This painting depicts Kahlo's body split open, revealing a crumbling Ionic column in place of her spine, nailed with pins, amid a barren landscape. Tears stream down her face, but her gaze is direct and stoic.
Psychologically, it symbolizes the fragility of her physical and emotional self post-spinal surgery, with the corset representing external support holding a disintegrating core together. Nails evoke chronic neuropathic pain and self-punishment, while the barren background suggests isolation and despair.
Henry Ford Hospital (1932)
Painted after a miscarriage in Detroit, Kahlo lies naked and bleeding on a hospital bed floating in an industrial landscape, connected by red ribbons (umbilical-like) to symbols: a fetus, snail (slow healing), orchid (femininity), pelvis (injury), and medical devices.
This raw depiction of loss and vulnerability reflects grief, body betrayal, and alienation in a foreign land. Psychoanalytically, the ribbons link conscious suffering to unconscious reproductive trauma.
The Two Fridas (1939)
Created during her divorce from Rivera, it shows two Fridas holding hands: one in Tehuana dress (loved by Diego, heart intact), the other in European attire (rejected, heart exposed and bleeding). A shared vein connects them, clamped on the rejected side.It illustrates identity dissociation, heartbreak, and cultural duality (Mexican heritage vs. European influences). The exposed heart symbolizes emotional hemorrhage from betrayal.
Other notable works include Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940), evoking martyrdom and pain through thorns piercing her neck, and various monkey-accompanied portraits symbolizing companionship amid loneliness.
Resilience and Therapeutic Role of Art
Despite suffering, Kahlo exhibited remarkable resilience, using painting as sublimation—channeling pain into creation. Art therapy perspectives view her work as healing, fostering attachment to self and promoting feminist empowerment. Her direct gaze in portraits asserts agency, rejecting victimhood.
Kahlo's legacy demonstrates art's power in processing trauma, offering universal insights into pain's psychological dimensions. Her unfiltered vulnerability continues to inspire discussions on mental health, gender, and recovery.
Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) was a Mexican painter whose work is deeply autobiographical, transforming profound physical and emotional suffering into vivid, symbolic art. Her life was marked by trauma, chronic pain, and psychological distress, which scholars and psychobiographers have analyzed through frameworks like psychoanalysis, attachment theory, art therapy, and feminist psychology. While retrospective psychiatric diagnoses are speculative, evidence from her biography, diary, and paintings suggests experiences consistent with chronic pain syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depressive episodes, and possible bipolar traits. Her art served as a therapeutic outlet, promoting resilience amid adversity.
Key Traumatic Events and Mental Health Impacts
Kahlo's psychological struggles stemmed from cumulative traumas:
- At age 6, she contracted polio, causing permanent limb damage and early body image issues.
- In 1925, a bus accident shattered her spine, pelvis, and foot, leading to lifelong chronic pain, over 30 surgeries, miscarriages, and eventual leg amputation.
- Her tumultuous marriage to Diego Rivera involved infidelity (including with her sister), divorce, and remarriage, triggering intense emotional pain.
- Multiple miscarriages deepened grief over infertility.
Psychological Themes in Her Art
About one-third of Kahlo's 143 paintings are self-portraits, often using surreal symbolism to externalize inner turmoil. She rejected the "surrealist" label, insisting she painted her reality. Common motifs include:
- Physical fragmentation (broken body as metaphor for psychic splitting).
- Blood, tears, and thorns (emotional hemorrhage and suffering).
- Animals (monkeys as protection/lust; deer as vulnerability).
- Dualities (split identities reflecting inner conflict).
The Broken Column (1944)
This painting depicts Kahlo's body split open, revealing a crumbling Ionic column in place of her spine, nailed with pins, amid a barren landscape. Tears stream down her face, but her gaze is direct and stoic.
Psychologically, it symbolizes the fragility of her physical and emotional self post-spinal surgery, with the corset representing external support holding a disintegrating core together. Nails evoke chronic neuropathic pain and self-punishment, while the barren background suggests isolation and despair.
Henry Ford Hospital (1932)
Painted after a miscarriage in Detroit, Kahlo lies naked and bleeding on a hospital bed floating in an industrial landscape, connected by red ribbons (umbilical-like) to symbols: a fetus, snail (slow healing), orchid (femininity), pelvis (injury), and medical devices.
This raw depiction of loss and vulnerability reflects grief, body betrayal, and alienation in a foreign land. Psychoanalytically, the ribbons link conscious suffering to unconscious reproductive trauma.
The Two Fridas (1939)
Created during her divorce from Rivera, it shows two Fridas holding hands: one in Tehuana dress (loved by Diego, heart intact), the other in European attire (rejected, heart exposed and bleeding). A shared vein connects them, clamped on the rejected side.It illustrates identity dissociation, heartbreak, and cultural duality (Mexican heritage vs. European influences). The exposed heart symbolizes emotional hemorrhage from betrayal.
Other notable works include Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940), evoking martyrdom and pain through thorns piercing her neck, and various monkey-accompanied portraits symbolizing companionship amid loneliness.
Resilience and Therapeutic Role of Art
Despite suffering, Kahlo exhibited remarkable resilience, using painting as sublimation—channeling pain into creation. Art therapy perspectives view her work as healing, fostering attachment to self and promoting feminist empowerment. Her direct gaze in portraits asserts agency, rejecting victimhood.
Kahlo's legacy demonstrates art's power in processing trauma, offering universal insights into pain's psychological dimensions. Her unfiltered vulnerability continues to inspire discussions on mental health, gender, and recovery.
1
1928 My Sister
2023 SOLD for $ 8.2M by Christie's
Frieda Kahlo was the third daughter of a German born Mexican naturalized photographer. She will remove the German sounding 'e' in her first name as a protest against Nazism.
She was unlucky in her health. Disabled by polio as a child, she was impaled in a near fatal bus accident at the age of 18 in 1925. Bored by her lengthy and painful convalescence bed bound in a plaster cast, she began to paint intimate portraits of family members and friends in the style of the photos made by her father. Her mother supplied her with an easel usable in her handicap.
Frieda used her art as a quest for the meaning of life, looking at herself in a mirror over her bed. She joined the Communist party in 1928 on an invitation by Tina Modotti and met her future husband Diego Rivera in the same year.
Her sister Cristina, eleven month younger than her, helped her in her convalescence. Portrait of Cristina, My Sister, oil on panel 80 x 60 cm painted in 1928, was sold for $ 8.2M by Christie's on November 9, 2023, lot 9 B.
The sitter is a young beauty of 20 with dark hair and strong eyebrows, bare armed in a simple white dress with a deep V neck line. The panel is a reminiscence of Cinquecento portraits by Bronzino. The leaves of a grapefruit tree symbolize the Biblical Lost Paradise.
She was unlucky in her health. Disabled by polio as a child, she was impaled in a near fatal bus accident at the age of 18 in 1925. Bored by her lengthy and painful convalescence bed bound in a plaster cast, she began to paint intimate portraits of family members and friends in the style of the photos made by her father. Her mother supplied her with an easel usable in her handicap.
Frieda used her art as a quest for the meaning of life, looking at herself in a mirror over her bed. She joined the Communist party in 1928 on an invitation by Tina Modotti and met her future husband Diego Rivera in the same year.
Her sister Cristina, eleven month younger than her, helped her in her convalescence. Portrait of Cristina, My Sister, oil on panel 80 x 60 cm painted in 1928, was sold for $ 8.2M by Christie's on November 9, 2023, lot 9 B.
The sitter is a young beauty of 20 with dark hair and strong eyebrows, bare armed in a simple white dress with a deep V neck line. The panel is a reminiscence of Cinquecento portraits by Bronzino. The leaves of a grapefruit tree symbolize the Biblical Lost Paradise.
2
1933 Ugly Self Portrait
2022 SOLD for $ 8.6M by Christie's
In 1933 Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo stay in New York from March to end of year. While Diego works for the project of a mural for the Rockefeller center, Frida goes crazy with the dime stores of cheap costume jewelry. Lucienne Bloch is her shopping companion.
She soon gets bored of New York which she nicknames 'Gringolandia'. Her health is poor and she does not set to paint.
A self portrait on Celotex insulation board 27 x 22 cm is an exception, using colors that she was grinding for Diego's plastered fresco panels.
In her usual practice she endeavors to express her mood. She displays herself as very ugly, in her own words. It was in summer while she already was in homesickness for Mexico and while Diego had an affair with Louise Nevelson.
The low cost necklace is a sign of her disenchantment from New York. The background is tagged as Basquiat will do in the same city half a century later. Tags are read 'SIRV, OH! BOY, VERY U and FRIEDA (sic)' plus a sad bird and a big apple. The overall contour of the image is irregularly curved.
This emotional painting was gifted by Frida to Lucienne who kept it for half a century. It was sold for $ 8.6M from a lower estimate of $ 7M by Christie's on November 17, 2022, lot 31.
She soon gets bored of New York which she nicknames 'Gringolandia'. Her health is poor and she does not set to paint.
A self portrait on Celotex insulation board 27 x 22 cm is an exception, using colors that she was grinding for Diego's plastered fresco panels.
In her usual practice she endeavors to express her mood. She displays herself as very ugly, in her own words. It was in summer while she already was in homesickness for Mexico and while Diego had an affair with Louise Nevelson.
The low cost necklace is a sign of her disenchantment from New York. The background is tagged as Basquiat will do in the same city half a century later. Tags are read 'SIRV, OH! BOY, VERY U and FRIEDA (sic)' plus a sad bird and a big apple. The overall contour of the image is irregularly curved.
This emotional painting was gifted by Frida to Lucienne who kept it for half a century. It was sold for $ 8.6M from a lower estimate of $ 7M by Christie's on November 17, 2022, lot 31.
3
1939 Dos Desnudos
2016 SOLD for $ 8M by Christie's
The life of Frida Kahlo was always difficult but 1939 was particularly painful and distressing both physically and psychologically. She is 32 years old. Nothing goes right with her husband and idol Diego Rivera who had been accepting her homosexual desires but is jealous of her men.
Frida needs some comforting and eventually considers that she can only find it within herself in a pathetic doubling of her personality. Las Dos Fridas is a double self portrait by the artist commented by herself as a symbol of her loneliness, broken by the fact that the two women are holding their hands.
This artwork helps to understand Dos desnudos en el bosque, oil on metal 25 x 30 cm painted in the same year.
A woman with dark skin is lovingly caressing a lying white woman. They are nude in a calm attitude but in the surrounding of a torrid vegetation loaded with sexual symbols. The sniper monkey plays the role of the male who will not be rejected by this Sapphic couple.
The seated woman has one leg that hangs into a seismic ravine. She fertilizes the soil through her long scarf and an almost imperceptible bleeding. Rooting is a recurring theme of the artist in her search for the mystery of human life and her need for a shelter against all the threats of the world.
The faces are not identifiable and Dos desnudos can be a double self portrait. If this is not the case, one of the women is the first owner of this painting, the Mexican film star Dolores del Río who was probably one of the targets of Frida's bisexuality.
Dos Desnudos was sold for $ 8M by Christie's on May 12, 2016, lot 21C.
Frida needs some comforting and eventually considers that she can only find it within herself in a pathetic doubling of her personality. Las Dos Fridas is a double self portrait by the artist commented by herself as a symbol of her loneliness, broken by the fact that the two women are holding their hands.
This artwork helps to understand Dos desnudos en el bosque, oil on metal 25 x 30 cm painted in the same year.
A woman with dark skin is lovingly caressing a lying white woman. They are nude in a calm attitude but in the surrounding of a torrid vegetation loaded with sexual symbols. The sniper monkey plays the role of the male who will not be rejected by this Sapphic couple.
The seated woman has one leg that hangs into a seismic ravine. She fertilizes the soil through her long scarf and an almost imperceptible bleeding. Rooting is a recurring theme of the artist in her search for the mystery of human life and her need for a shelter against all the threats of the world.
The faces are not identifiable and Dos desnudos can be a double self portrait. If this is not the case, one of the women is the first owner of this painting, the Mexican film star Dolores del Río who was probably one of the targets of Frida's bisexuality.
Dos Desnudos was sold for $ 8M by Christie's on May 12, 2016, lot 21C.
4
1940 El Sueno (La Carna)
2025 SOLD for $ 55M by Sotheby's
El sueño (La cama), oil on canvas 74 x 98 cm painted in 1940 by Frida Kahlo in 1940, was sold for $ 55M from a lower estimate of $ 40M for sale by Sotheby's on November 20, 2025, lot 13. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Asking Grok its significance in the career of the artist.
Grok thought :
Frida Kahlo's El sueño (La cama) (The Dream [The Bed]), painted in 1940, is a poignant self-portrait that encapsulates key themes in her oeuvre, including mortality, the interplay between life and death, personal suffering, and dreamlike surrealism. Measuring 74 by 98 cm and executed in oil on canvas, the work depicts Kahlo asleep in a bed floating amid clouds, her body partially entwined in thorny vines that evoke both growth and entrapment. Above her, on the bed's canopy, lies a life-sized papier-mâché skeleton (a "Judas" figure from Mexican folk tradition, which Kahlo kept in her real bedroom as a memento mori), rigged with dynamite and a lit fuse—symbolizing imminent danger and the fragility of existence. This juxtaposition of serene repose below and explosive peril above reflects Kahlo's lifelong preoccupation with death, informed by her chronic pain from a 1925 bus accident, multiple surgeries, miscarriages, and emotional turmoil.
In the context of Kahlo's career, El sueño (La cama) marks a significant moment during a period of intense personal upheaval and artistic evolution. Created shortly after her 1939 divorce from Diego Rivera (whom she remarried later in 1940) and amid her affair with Leon Trotsky, who was assassinated that year, the painting channels her psychological and physical anguish into a deeply introspective narrative. It exemplifies her shift toward more symbolic, introspective works in the late 1930s and early 1940s, blending autobiographical elements with Mexican cultural motifs and surrealist influences—though Kahlo famously rejected the Surrealist label, insisting her art depicted her reality. This piece stands out as one of her most intimate explorations of vulnerability, where the bed (a recurring motif representing confinement due to her health issues) becomes a stage for confronting mortality while asserting life's persistence through natural imagery like vines.
The painting's importance is underscored by its extensive exhibition history, including major retrospectives at Tate Modern (2005), the Walker Art Center (2007-08), and the Guggenheim Museum (1999), as well as its inclusion in seminal publications like Hayden Herrera's Frida Kahlo: The Paintings (1991) and Luis-Martín Lozano's The Complete Paintings of Frida Kahlo (2021), where it has even graced book covers. It has been analyzed as a testament to Kahlo's resilience, transforming personal trauma into universal symbols of human fragility. Provenance traces back to Galería Misrachi in Mexico City, with ownership passing through private collections before its last auction at Sotheby's in 1980; its reappearance at Sotheby's Exquisite Corpus Evening Auction on November 20, 2025 (lot 13, estimated at $40-60 million), highlights its rarity and market value, potentially shattering her auction record and affirming her status as a 20th-century icon.
Pre sale Grok thought :
Quote
Sotheby's @Sothebys Sep 19
More than 80 Surrealist treasures from a Private Collection are coming to The New York Sales in November—including Frida Kahlo’s intimate self-portrait that is poised to set a new auction record. https://bit.ly/4mo8kGU
Asking Grok its significance in the career of the artist.
Grok thought :
Frida Kahlo's El sueño (La cama) (The Dream [The Bed]), painted in 1940, is a poignant self-portrait that encapsulates key themes in her oeuvre, including mortality, the interplay between life and death, personal suffering, and dreamlike surrealism. Measuring 74 by 98 cm and executed in oil on canvas, the work depicts Kahlo asleep in a bed floating amid clouds, her body partially entwined in thorny vines that evoke both growth and entrapment. Above her, on the bed's canopy, lies a life-sized papier-mâché skeleton (a "Judas" figure from Mexican folk tradition, which Kahlo kept in her real bedroom as a memento mori), rigged with dynamite and a lit fuse—symbolizing imminent danger and the fragility of existence. This juxtaposition of serene repose below and explosive peril above reflects Kahlo's lifelong preoccupation with death, informed by her chronic pain from a 1925 bus accident, multiple surgeries, miscarriages, and emotional turmoil.
In the context of Kahlo's career, El sueño (La cama) marks a significant moment during a period of intense personal upheaval and artistic evolution. Created shortly after her 1939 divorce from Diego Rivera (whom she remarried later in 1940) and amid her affair with Leon Trotsky, who was assassinated that year, the painting channels her psychological and physical anguish into a deeply introspective narrative. It exemplifies her shift toward more symbolic, introspective works in the late 1930s and early 1940s, blending autobiographical elements with Mexican cultural motifs and surrealist influences—though Kahlo famously rejected the Surrealist label, insisting her art depicted her reality. This piece stands out as one of her most intimate explorations of vulnerability, where the bed (a recurring motif representing confinement due to her health issues) becomes a stage for confronting mortality while asserting life's persistence through natural imagery like vines.
The painting's importance is underscored by its extensive exhibition history, including major retrospectives at Tate Modern (2005), the Walker Art Center (2007-08), and the Guggenheim Museum (1999), as well as its inclusion in seminal publications like Hayden Herrera's Frida Kahlo: The Paintings (1991) and Luis-Martín Lozano's The Complete Paintings of Frida Kahlo (2021), where it has even graced book covers. It has been analyzed as a testament to Kahlo's resilience, transforming personal trauma into universal symbols of human fragility. Provenance traces back to Galería Misrachi in Mexico City, with ownership passing through private collections before its last auction at Sotheby's in 1980; its reappearance at Sotheby's Exquisite Corpus Evening Auction on November 20, 2025 (lot 13, estimated at $40-60 million), highlights its rarity and market value, potentially shattering her auction record and affirming her status as a 20th-century icon.
Pre sale Grok thought :
Quote
Sotheby's @Sothebys Sep 19
More than 80 Surrealist treasures from a Private Collection are coming to The New York Sales in November—including Frida Kahlo’s intimate self-portrait that is poised to set a new auction record. https://bit.ly/4mo8kGU
- Sotheby's post highlights the upcoming "Exquisite Corpus" auction in New York on November 20-21, 2025, showcasing over 80 Surrealist works from a private collection, emphasizing psychological depth in 20th-century art.
- The centerpiece is Frida Kahlo's 1940 oil "El sueño (La cama)", a dreamlike self-portrait of the artist asleep on a bed atop a barren landscape, carrying a $40-60 million estimate that could shatter her prior $34.9 million record and top the $44.4 million benchmark for any female artist.
- Amid rising demand for women-led Surrealism, the sale includes pieces by Miró, Picasso, and Kandinsky, providing collectors access to rare modernist narratives on identity and the subconscious.
'El sueño (La cama)' by Frida Kahlo soars to $54.7 million, becoming the most valuable work by a woman artist ever sold at auction.
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) November 21, 2025
Painted in 1940 during a pivotal decade in her career, marked by her turbulent relationship with Diego Rivera. pic.twitter.com/t6Sni7fIKT
5
1949 Diego y Yo
2021 SOLD for $ 35M by Sotheby's
Frida Kahlo suffered a lifelong intense pain in her back after an accident. She courageously faced her condition by her art and by her quest for a passion out of the ordinary, including political commitment and bisexuality. She found her partner, unfaithful husband and accomplice in the Communist artist Diego Rivera, 20 years older than her.
Kahlo's art is made of metaphors and symbols with a high poetry. A friend of the Surrealists, she nevertheless insisted to state that she was not representing her dreams but her reality. 55 of her ca 143 paintings are self portraits.
Eager to exchange an empathy, she often made and inscribed self portraits for friends : Trotsky, her doctors. On November 16, 2021, Sotheby's sold such a self portrait for $ 35M, lot 12. This oil on masonite 30 x 22 cm painted in 1949 is dedicated to Florence and Sam, a couple of friends who were instrumental in promoting her art. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The piece was titled Diego y yo by the artist. It displays the portrait in bust of Diego Rivera on the forehead, fully centered between eyebrows and hair. This figure has at the same place the third eye of wisdom. The intimate theme of this self portrait is indeed her obsession for Diego. Three tears flow on her cheeks.
A self portrait executed in 1954, the year of her untimely death, is in the same inspiration, with the image of Diego on the breast and of her rival Maria between the eyebrows.
Grok thought :
Quote
Sotheby's @Sothebys Nov 17, 2021
#AuctionUpdate: Frida Kahlo’s 1949 self-portrait ‘Diego y yo (Diego and I)’ soars to $34.9M, smashing the artist’s previous $8 million public auction record. This enigmatic work is Kahlo’s final ‘bust’ self-portrait completed before her death in 1954.
Kahlo's art is made of metaphors and symbols with a high poetry. A friend of the Surrealists, she nevertheless insisted to state that she was not representing her dreams but her reality. 55 of her ca 143 paintings are self portraits.
Eager to exchange an empathy, she often made and inscribed self portraits for friends : Trotsky, her doctors. On November 16, 2021, Sotheby's sold such a self portrait for $ 35M, lot 12. This oil on masonite 30 x 22 cm painted in 1949 is dedicated to Florence and Sam, a couple of friends who were instrumental in promoting her art. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The piece was titled Diego y yo by the artist. It displays the portrait in bust of Diego Rivera on the forehead, fully centered between eyebrows and hair. This figure has at the same place the third eye of wisdom. The intimate theme of this self portrait is indeed her obsession for Diego. Three tears flow on her cheeks.
A self portrait executed in 1954, the year of her untimely death, is in the same inspiration, with the image of Diego on the breast and of her rival Maria between the eyebrows.
Grok thought :
Quote
Sotheby's @Sothebys Nov 17, 2021
#AuctionUpdate: Frida Kahlo’s 1949 self-portrait ‘Diego y yo (Diego and I)’ soars to $34.9M, smashing the artist’s previous $8 million public auction record. This enigmatic work is Kahlo’s final ‘bust’ self-portrait completed before her death in 1954.
- Sotheby's 2021 post celebrates the $34.9 million auction sale of Frida Kahlo's 1949 oil-on-masonite self-portrait "Diego y yo," depicting Kahlo with tears and Diego Rivera's face emerging from her forehead, symbolizing her enduring emotional turmoil in their marriage.
- The work, Kahlo's last bust-length self-portrait before her 1954 death from health complications, shattered her prior $8 million record and was consigned by the Oppenheimer family after decades in private collection.
- As of November 2025, this sale's record has been eclipsed by Kahlo's "El sueño (La cama)" fetching $54.7 million at Sotheby's, marking the highest price for any artwork by a woman at public auction.
#AuctionUpdate: Frida Kahlo’s 1949 self-portrait ‘Diego y yo (Diego and I)’ soars to $34.9M, smashing the artist’s previous $8 million public auction record. This enigmatic work is Kahlo’s final ‘bust’ self-portrait completed before her death in 1954. pic.twitter.com/NVJZ3c8FOV
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) November 17, 2021
RIVERA
1
1931 The Rivals
2022 SOLD for $ 14M by Christie's
The Mexican muralism was born in 1921 from an observation by Vasconcelos : the people are mostly illiterate but the public image can be as suitable as a writing for propagating the fervor of the Revolution. Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros and Tamayo create a new art adapted to the socialist ideas.
Out of standards in every meaning of that wording, Diego Rivera is uncompromising. His artistic message is communist and anticlerical and he will not change it even under the pressure generated by his provocations.
In New York City, Abby Rockefeller begins in 1925 a collection of modern European art which is not so much supported by her husband but she moves forward. The creation of the Museum of Modern Art in 1929 comes mainly from her personal initiative. She multiplies the actions, including a first solo exhibition which is dedicated to Matisse.
Mexican art shows mostly the people, even if they are confronted with the abuses from the bourgeoisie. Abby, who was also collecting folk art, devotes the second solo exhibition of the MoMA to Rivera in 1931. The thunderous artist had been accused of anti-Soviet activities while working in Moscow and the Mexican Communist Party had fired him. Some recent activities in California showed his interest to the United States.
John D. Rockefeller Jr, Abby's husband, does not see the political trap. In 1933 he commissions some murals for the Rockefeller Center to Rivera. Without warning, Rivera introduces into the picture a portrait of Lenin and categorically refuses to withdraw it despite an attempted negotiation by the young Nelson Rockefeller. The fresco is scrapped but Rivera has achieved his goal of ridiculing the capitalists.
With the invitation of 1931 Abby Rockefeller had commissioned an artwork to Rivera. He completed it during the boat journey to New York. The Rivals, oil on canvas 152 x 127 cm, is about a celebration of patron saints in Oaxaca. The composition is animated at various distances by groups of characters in local clothing, with the shimmering exotic colors that pleased Abby. This picture is in the recent decorative style of Matisse.
The Rivals was given as a wedding present to David and Peggy Rockefeller in 1941. Coming from their deceased estate, it was sold for $ 9.8M by Christie's on May 9, 2018, lot 424. Coming afterward from the Paul G. Allen collection, it was sold for $ 14M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 37.
Out of standards in every meaning of that wording, Diego Rivera is uncompromising. His artistic message is communist and anticlerical and he will not change it even under the pressure generated by his provocations.
In New York City, Abby Rockefeller begins in 1925 a collection of modern European art which is not so much supported by her husband but she moves forward. The creation of the Museum of Modern Art in 1929 comes mainly from her personal initiative. She multiplies the actions, including a first solo exhibition which is dedicated to Matisse.
Mexican art shows mostly the people, even if they are confronted with the abuses from the bourgeoisie. Abby, who was also collecting folk art, devotes the second solo exhibition of the MoMA to Rivera in 1931. The thunderous artist had been accused of anti-Soviet activities while working in Moscow and the Mexican Communist Party had fired him. Some recent activities in California showed his interest to the United States.
John D. Rockefeller Jr, Abby's husband, does not see the political trap. In 1933 he commissions some murals for the Rockefeller Center to Rivera. Without warning, Rivera introduces into the picture a portrait of Lenin and categorically refuses to withdraw it despite an attempted negotiation by the young Nelson Rockefeller. The fresco is scrapped but Rivera has achieved his goal of ridiculing the capitalists.
With the invitation of 1931 Abby Rockefeller had commissioned an artwork to Rivera. He completed it during the boat journey to New York. The Rivals, oil on canvas 152 x 127 cm, is about a celebration of patron saints in Oaxaca. The composition is animated at various distances by groups of characters in local clothing, with the shimmering exotic colors that pleased Abby. This picture is in the recent decorative style of Matisse.
The Rivals was given as a wedding present to David and Peggy Rockefeller in 1941. Coming from their deceased estate, it was sold for $ 9.8M by Christie's on May 9, 2018, lot 424. Coming afterward from the Paul G. Allen collection, it was sold for $ 14M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 37.
2
1950 Columba Dominguez
2021 SOLD for $ 7.4M by Sotheby's
Back in his home country in 1921, Diego Rivera was keen to highlight the ethnic and cultural specificities of the Mexicans.
A lifelong womanizer, he also made life size portraits of pretty actresses of Hollywood and Mexico, including Paulette Goddard in 1940. In the later 1940s Maria Felix was the leading movie actress in Mexico, often directed by Emilio "El Indio" Fernandez.
In 1949 Felix disputed a portrait by Rivera, stating later : "I wanted him to paint me as a Tehuana, but he said it was very vulgar, so he painted me as he wanted ... naked, because he was very much in love with me".
Another leading actress in El Indio's films was Columba Dominguez, a native beauty who started her career with him at age 16 in 1945 and was his wife or partner from 1947 to 1952.
The portrait of Dominguez was commissioned to Rivera who viewed her as a pure expression of Mexico. Against his own statement reported by Felix, he painted her with the gorgeous huipile blouse and the narrow enredo skirt of the women in Tehuantepec in the southeast of Mexico. Dominguez is featured in a dignified demeanor and proud gaze, walking barefoot while carrying a dried pumpkin gourd. The life size provides a spectacular presence of this portrait freed of cinematographic eroticism.
The Retrato de Columba Dominguez de Fernandez, oil on canvas 193 x 120 cm painted in 1950, was sold for $ 7.4M from a lower estimate of $ 2M by Sotheby's on May 13, 2021, lot 1024.
A lifelong womanizer, he also made life size portraits of pretty actresses of Hollywood and Mexico, including Paulette Goddard in 1940. In the later 1940s Maria Felix was the leading movie actress in Mexico, often directed by Emilio "El Indio" Fernandez.
In 1949 Felix disputed a portrait by Rivera, stating later : "I wanted him to paint me as a Tehuana, but he said it was very vulgar, so he painted me as he wanted ... naked, because he was very much in love with me".
Another leading actress in El Indio's films was Columba Dominguez, a native beauty who started her career with him at age 16 in 1945 and was his wife or partner from 1947 to 1952.
The portrait of Dominguez was commissioned to Rivera who viewed her as a pure expression of Mexico. Against his own statement reported by Felix, he painted her with the gorgeous huipile blouse and the narrow enredo skirt of the women in Tehuantepec in the southeast of Mexico. Dominguez is featured in a dignified demeanor and proud gaze, walking barefoot while carrying a dried pumpkin gourd. The life size provides a spectacular presence of this portrait freed of cinematographic eroticism.
The Retrato de Columba Dominguez de Fernandez, oil on canvas 193 x 120 cm painted in 1950, was sold for $ 7.4M from a lower estimate of $ 2M by Sotheby's on May 13, 2021, lot 1024.
CARRINGTON
1
1945 Les Distractions de Dagobert
2024 SOLD for $ 28.5M by Sotheby's
A natural rebel, the English born Leonora Carrington began her career with novels that appealed the Surrealists. She had an affair with Max Ernst and began painting. Aged 21 in 1938, Inn of the Dawn Horse is a self portrait with a hyena pet and a rocking horse with a background garden traveled by a white horse.
Her surrealist life in a bucolic French village in couple with Ernst was interrupted when he was arrested as a German citizen. Carrington fled alone to Spain where she had to be interned for psychotic hallucinations. She did not meet Ernst again.
In 1942 President Manuel Avila Camacho opened Mexico to European artists who fled the war. In Mexico City they could join a rich and highly original artistic tradition including the muralists and the couple Kahlo-Rivera. Carrington built a friendly community of women with the Spanish Remedios Varo and the Hungarian photographer Kati Horna.
The French titled Les Distractions de Dagobert, painted by Carrington in 1945, is a joyful synthesis of her wide knowledge of myths and occultism mingled with her dreams and the memory of her hallucinations. The profusion of details reminds Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights and Dante's subterranean world.
The small scale central figure in a surrealist chariot is the French medieval king reputed for his sexual appetite. The composition around him is divided into the four classical elements of earth, air, wind and fire. An unlimited empty stairs rises to paradise while female teratological hybrids display their occupational. A reclining figure in a flying hammock is certainly a self portrait.
This egg tempera on masonite 76 x 87 cm was sold for $ 28.5M from a lower estimate of $ 12M by Sotheby's on May 15, 2024, lot 20. Please watch the interview of the winning bidder, shared by the auction house.
Les Distractions de Dagobert (1945) by Leonora Carrington is widely regarded as her magnum opus and a pivotal masterpiece in her career. Painted in September 1945, shortly after she settled in Mexico City in 1943, this tempera on Masonite work marks the culmination of her artistic maturation during a transformative period.
Carrington, a British-born Surrealist who fled war-torn Europe, found creative freedom in Mexico among exiled Surrealists (such as Remedios Varo and Wolfgang Paalen) and Mexican modernists (including Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera). There, she rejected the "muse" role imposed by figures like André Breton and Max Ernst, developing a highly personal style infused with Celtic mythology, alchemy, the occult, and feminist themes. This painting represents the crowning achievement of that era, showcasing her at the height of her technical and imaginative powers—with intricate Bosch-like details, hybrid creatures, symbolic vignettes tied to the four elements, and luminous color.
It was a highlight of her acclaimed 1948 solo exhibition at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York, and has since featured in major shows, including the 2022 Venice Biennale-related exhibition at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection ("Surrealism and Magic: Enchanted Modernity"), where it was a thematic centerpiece.
The work's significance was dramatically underscored when it sold at Sotheby's Modern Evening Auction on May 15, 2024 (lot 20) for $28.5 million (including fees), shattering Carrington's previous auction record of $3.3 million (set in 2022) and establishing a new benchmark for a British-born female artist. Acquired by Argentine collector Eduardo F. Costantini, it reflects the growing recognition of female Surrealists and Carrington's enduring influence on 20th-century art.
Her surrealist life in a bucolic French village in couple with Ernst was interrupted when he was arrested as a German citizen. Carrington fled alone to Spain where she had to be interned for psychotic hallucinations. She did not meet Ernst again.
In 1942 President Manuel Avila Camacho opened Mexico to European artists who fled the war. In Mexico City they could join a rich and highly original artistic tradition including the muralists and the couple Kahlo-Rivera. Carrington built a friendly community of women with the Spanish Remedios Varo and the Hungarian photographer Kati Horna.
The French titled Les Distractions de Dagobert, painted by Carrington in 1945, is a joyful synthesis of her wide knowledge of myths and occultism mingled with her dreams and the memory of her hallucinations. The profusion of details reminds Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights and Dante's subterranean world.
The small scale central figure in a surrealist chariot is the French medieval king reputed for his sexual appetite. The composition around him is divided into the four classical elements of earth, air, wind and fire. An unlimited empty stairs rises to paradise while female teratological hybrids display their occupational. A reclining figure in a flying hammock is certainly a self portrait.
This egg tempera on masonite 76 x 87 cm was sold for $ 28.5M from a lower estimate of $ 12M by Sotheby's on May 15, 2024, lot 20. Please watch the interview of the winning bidder, shared by the auction house.
Les Distractions de Dagobert (1945) by Leonora Carrington is widely regarded as her magnum opus and a pivotal masterpiece in her career. Painted in September 1945, shortly after she settled in Mexico City in 1943, this tempera on Masonite work marks the culmination of her artistic maturation during a transformative period.
Carrington, a British-born Surrealist who fled war-torn Europe, found creative freedom in Mexico among exiled Surrealists (such as Remedios Varo and Wolfgang Paalen) and Mexican modernists (including Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera). There, she rejected the "muse" role imposed by figures like André Breton and Max Ernst, developing a highly personal style infused with Celtic mythology, alchemy, the occult, and feminist themes. This painting represents the crowning achievement of that era, showcasing her at the height of her technical and imaginative powers—with intricate Bosch-like details, hybrid creatures, symbolic vignettes tied to the four elements, and luminous color.
It was a highlight of her acclaimed 1948 solo exhibition at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York, and has since featured in major shows, including the 2022 Venice Biennale-related exhibition at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection ("Surrealism and Magic: Enchanted Modernity"), where it was a thematic centerpiece.
The work's significance was dramatically underscored when it sold at Sotheby's Modern Evening Auction on May 15, 2024 (lot 20) for $28.5 million (including fees), shattering Carrington's previous auction record of $3.3 million (set in 2022) and establishing a new benchmark for a British-born female artist. Acquired by Argentine collector Eduardo F. Costantini, it reflects the growing recognition of female Surrealists and Carrington's enduring influence on 20th-century art.
2
1951 La Grande Dame / The Cat Woman
2024 SOLD for $ 11.4M by Sotheby's
Leonora Carrington was born in England to an Irish mother. As a young girl she was fascinated by the stories of the occult told to her by her maternal grandmother. Exiled in Mexico during the Second World War after having tried a Surrealist life in France with Max Ernst, she became aware of Aztec and Mayan traditions.
La Grande Dame, English title The Cat Woman, is a larger than life sculpture painted in oil by Carrington with fantastical creatures of witchcraft and rebirth. The wood had been carved by Jose Horna, the husband of her fellow surrealist the photographer Kati Horna. The overall shape reminds an antique Egyptian hybrid goddess. The figure was indeed influenced by the cat goddess Bastet.
This 2 m high figure executed in 1951 was sold for $ 11.4M from a lower estimate of $ 5M by Sotheby's on November 18, 2024, lot 103. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
These themes were in the air. It is no coincidence that the UK lifted in the same year the prohibition of the studies about the magic and the occult. La Grande Dame is also a representation of the female energy by a woman in the art world dominated by men.
La Grande Dame, English title The Cat Woman, is a larger than life sculpture painted in oil by Carrington with fantastical creatures of witchcraft and rebirth. The wood had been carved by Jose Horna, the husband of her fellow surrealist the photographer Kati Horna. The overall shape reminds an antique Egyptian hybrid goddess. The figure was indeed influenced by the cat goddess Bastet.
This 2 m high figure executed in 1951 was sold for $ 11.4M from a lower estimate of $ 5M by Sotheby's on November 18, 2024, lot 103. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
These themes were in the air. It is no coincidence that the UK lifted in the same year the prohibition of the studies about the magic and the occult. La Grande Dame is also a representation of the female energy by a woman in the art world dominated by men.
1945 Trovador by Tamayo
2008 SOLD for $ 7.2M by Christie's
Unlike Orozco, Rivera and Siqueiros, Tamayo does not want to illustrate the revolution. Relying on his Zapotec heritage, he seeks to express in his art the roots and peculiarities of the Mexican people. Like Lam in Cuba his origins are mixed. Like Lam he finds the solution in an adaptation of modern art to his own message.
The pictorial expression does not need a shimmering palette. Tamayo reduces his painting to a few pure, dark colors, in a unique balance that could have led him durably to abstraction.
In Mexico the trovador is a street singer. A keen observer of Mexican life, Tamayo caricatured one of them in 1945 with a wide open mouth and playing a guitar, followed by two mujeres. In Occitan culture the troubadour had been a trouveur, a poet who created his own songs and complaintes.
This typical Mexican theme is expressed in the shadow in rich saturated colors. Trovador, larger than life oil on canvas 153 x 127 cm painted in 1945, was sold for $ 7.2M from a lower estimate of $ 2M by Christie's on May 29, 2008, lot 18.
The pictorial expression does not need a shimmering palette. Tamayo reduces his painting to a few pure, dark colors, in a unique balance that could have led him durably to abstraction.
In Mexico the trovador is a street singer. A keen observer of Mexican life, Tamayo caricatured one of them in 1945 with a wide open mouth and playing a guitar, followed by two mujeres. In Occitan culture the troubadour had been a trouveur, a poet who created his own songs and complaintes.
This typical Mexican theme is expressed in the shadow in rich saturated colors. Trovador, larger than life oil on canvas 153 x 127 cm painted in 1945, was sold for $ 7.2M from a lower estimate of $ 2M by Christie's on May 29, 2008, lot 18.
