Wed 17 November 2021:
A painting by Frida Kahlo from 1949 sold for $34.9 million at Sotheby’s New York on Tuesday night, setting a new auction record for the artist.
The work, named Diego y yo (Diego and I), had a presale estimate of $30 million to $50 million and was guaranteed by a third party, which means the auction house had a buyer lined up willing to pay a minimum sum before the auction ever started.
Given the pre-sale agreements, there was never any doubt that the work would easily break Kahlo’s previous auction record, which was set in 2016 when a 1939 painting of two ladies on the outskirts of a forest sold for $8 million at Christie’s in New York.
“This is one of the most important works by Kahlo ever to come to auction and we’re thrilled that it should be at Sotheby’s,” Oliver Barker, Sotheby’s auctioneer and senior director, said as he opened the bidding.
Kahlo, who died in 1954, is one of the most well-known yet least prolific artists in the world.
According to her catalogue raisonné, she only painted roughly 140 paintings, giving Diego y yo a rare opportunity for collectors to buy her art.
The Eduardo F. Costantini Collection purchased the picture. Costantini is a real estate entrepreneur from Argentina who founded the Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires, or Malba, in 2001. The painting is for his personal collection, according to Sotheby’s.
Diego y yo, which is just under a foot tall, has been out of the public spotlight for more than 30 years; it was last auctioned in 1990 at Sotheby’s New York, where it sold for $1.43 million.
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