A self-portrait by Frida Kahlo is set to break records at Sotheby's
Frida Kahlo - Diego y yo - 1949
Sotheby's has announced that next November it will auction in New York "Diego and I", one of the last self-portraits by Frida Kahlo.
Source: Sotheby's. Image: Frida Kahlo, "Diego and I", 1949. Pre-sale estimate: in excess of $30 million
I paint self-portraits because I spend so much time aloneFrida Kahlo
Over the last few decades, the figure of Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) has become increasingly recognised, both within and outside the art world, to the point of becoming an icon of Latin American art and of the struggle for recognition by women artists. Her self-portraits stand out in her oeuvre as testimonies to the tormented life of Frida, an artist who, in her own words, "painted her own reality".
"Diego y yo” (Diego and I) is a bust-length self-portrait in which Kahlo, wearing the traditional huipil, is depicted with an anguished and vulnerable appearance, an effect accentuated by the three tears welling up in her eyes. The most immediately notable feature of the painting is the presence of a portrait of Diego Rivera, Frida's husband, on the painter's forehead. In this "portrait within a portrait", Frida has depicted Diego with a third eye, which Sotheby's says "alludes to Rivera’s relationship with the Mexican diva María Félix, of whom the muralist painted a sensual portrait also in 1949."
With its valuation "in excess of $30 million", it is highly likely that "Diego and I" will beat the auction record for a work by Frida Kahlo, a "modest" $8 million achieved by Christie's with the sale of "Two Nudes in the Forest" in 2016. However, Kahlo's works have fetched much higher prices in private sales. Speaking to Reuters, Dan Abernethy of Sotheby's claimed that the auction house had sold at least two Frida paintings for around $15 million each. As if that wasn't enough, just a month ago Kenny Schachter of artnet.com published details of an alleged private sale of a Frida self-portrait for a staggering $130 million.

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