(24 Sep 2025)
+REPLAY – CORRECTING THE SPELLING GEORGIA O’KEEFFE’S SURNAME IN SCRIPT +
ASSOCIATED PRESS
London, UK – 19 September 2025
1. Mid of ‘El sueño (la cama)’ (The Dream (the Ded)), 1940, by Frida Kahlo, on display at Sotheby’s auction house
2. Close of figure of Frida Kahlo lying in bed
3. Pan of skeleton figure on canopy of bed
4. Various of painting
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARCHIVE: Mexico City, Mexico – 14 April 1939
++BLACK AND WHITE++
5. VARIOUS OF STILL Frida Kahlo, Mexican painter and surrealist, poses at her home
ASSOCIATED PRESS
London, UK – 19 September 2025
6. Various of Helena Newman, Chairman of Impressionist and Modern Art Worldwide, Sotheby’s, looking at painting
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Helena Newman, Chairman of Impressionist and Modern Art Worldwide, Sotheby’s:
"Well, this painting is called The Dream, The Bed, from 1940, and it is a self-portrait of Frida asleep in her bed. This was her bed with this canopy. And she’s depicted herself here surrounded by this very romantic, beautiful foliage of leaves. But above on the canopy is this skeleton-like corpus holding flowers, but almost entwined in what looks like a kind of detonator or something, so it’s a very disturbing image, it’s genuinely surreal."
8. Various of painting
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Helena Newman, Chairman of Impressionist and Modern Art Worldwide, Sotheby’s:
"So we’ve estimated this masterpiece by Frida Kahlo at $40 to $60 million. We anticipate it will set a new world auction record for the artist. It may even make a new auction record for any work by a female artist. And Frida Kahlo’s works are extremely rare. They’re very rare to see coming to auction, coming from private hands. Most of them are in museums. And so this is an exceptional opportunity both for a major collector or indeed an institution to buy a great work by Frida Kahlo."
10. Pan of gallery
11. Various of ‘Interior with Sudden Joy’, Dorothea Tanning
12. Various of ‘La Représentation’, René Magritte
13. Various of ‘Symbiose de la tête aux coquillages’, Salvador Dali
STORYLINE:
+REPLAY – CORRECTING THE SPELLING GEORGIA O’KEEFFE’S SURNAME IN SCRIPT +
LEADIN:
A masterpiece by Frida Kahlo could break the world record for a female artist at auction.
‘El sueño (la cama)’ will be sold by Sotheby’s with an estimate of $40-60 million.
STORYLINE:
Frida Kahlo lies in bed, draped in foliage and seemingly in a deep sleep.
A skeleton wired with dynamite and clutching a bouquet of flowers lies atop the canopy.
The image is exploding with symbolism and feels like an allegory – but the artist really did have a skeleton on top of her bed.
This is ‘El sueño, la cama’ – ‘The Dream, the Bed’- a self-portrait by Kahlo.
The theme was an important one for her: she spent months in bed after a serious bus accident when she was 18.
She never fully recovered from her injuries and struggled with pain all her life.
But that was something Kahlo channelled into art.
And now this painting is set to be auctioned by Sotheby’s.
Helena Newman, Chairman of Impressionist and Modern Art Worldwide, deems it a masterpiece.
"This was her bed with this canopy. And she’s depicted herself here surrounded by this very romantic, beautiful foliage of leaves. But above on the canopy is this skeleton-like corpus holding flowers, but almost entwined in what looks like a kind of detonator or something, so it’s a very disturbing image, it’s genuinely surreal," she says.
Competition for Kahlo’s work is fierce – another painting, ‘Diego and I’, sold for £34.9 million in 2021.
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