Mexican art historians weigh in on upcoming Kahlo’s auction that could fetch up to $60 million

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Frida Kahlo’s “El sueno (La cama)” — in English, “The Dream (The Bed)” — is causing a stir among art historians as its estimated $40 million to $60 million price tag would make it the most expensive work by any female or Latin American artist when it goes to auction later this month.

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Sotheby’s auction house will put the painting up for sale on Nov. 20 in New York after exhibiting it in London, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong and Paris.

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“This is a moment of a lot of speculation,” said Mexican art historian Helena Chavez Mac Gregor, a researcher at UNAM’s Institute of Aesthetic Research and author of “El liston y la bomba. El arte de Frida Kahlo.” (The ribbon and the bomb. The art of Frida Kahlo).

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In Mexico, Kahlo’s work is protected by a declaration of artistic monument, meaning pieces within the country cannot be sold or destroyed. However, works from private collections abroad — like the painting in question, whose owner remains unrevealed — are legally eligible for international sale.

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“The system of declaring Mexican modern artistic heritage is very anomalous,” said Mexican curator Cuauhtemoc Medina, an art historian and specialist in contemporary art.

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Judas in bed

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“El sueno (La cama)” was created in 1940 following Kahlo’s trip to Paris, where she came into contact with the surrealists.

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Contrary to contemporary belief, the skull on the bed’s canopy is not a Day of the Dead skeleton, but a Judas — a handmade cardboard figure. Traditionally lit with gunpowder during Easter, this effigy symbolizes purification and the triumph of good over evil, representing Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus.

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In the painting, the skeleton is detailed with firecrackers, flowers on its ribs and a smiling grimace — a detail inspired by a cardboard skeleton Kahlo actually kept in the canopy of her own bed.

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Kahlo “spent a lot of time in bed waiting for death,” said Chavez Mac Gregor. “She had a very complex life because of all the illnesses and physical challenges with which she lived.”

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Frida and surrealism

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Although Kahlo’s painting is being auctioned alongside works by surrealists like Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning, she did not consider herself a member of the movement, despite having met its founder, Andre Breton, in Mexico and had an exhibition organized by him in Paris in 1939.

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“Breton was fascinated by Frida’s work, because he saw that surrealist spirit there,” said Chavez Mac Gregor.

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Kahlo, a committed communist, considered surrealism — a movement proposing a revolution of consciousness — to be bourgeois. As Chavez Mac Gregor noted, “Frida always had a critical distance from that.”

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Despite this, specialists have found elements of surrealism in Kahlo’s work related to the dreamlike, to an inner world and to a revolutionary and sexual freedom — a concept visible in a bed suspended in the sky with Kahlo sleeping among a vine.

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‘Crazy-priced purchases’