In late 2021, an intimate Frida Kahlo self portrait that became one of the most expensive Latin American artwork ever sold. This broke the benchmark set by her husband, Diego Rivera. 

What are the other famous works she created? 

We’ll give you all the answers, including a look at Frida Kahlo’s biography.

Image Credit: Bettmann // Getty Images / Masterworks.com.

Frida Kahlo’s Biography

Let’s take a look at the life and times of this renowned artist:

• 1907: Frida Kahlo was born in Mexico City, Latin America, to a German immigrant father and a Mexican mother. She learned painting early on when she helped her father with his photography work.

• 1913: The Latin American artist contracted polio, leaving her with a limp for the rest of her life.

• 1925: Kahlo got hit by a bus, leaving her with a fractured spine and pelvis. During this period, she devoted most of her time to art. The Mexican painter had previously studied science and medicine and never intended to be an artist. She was also known globally as a feminist icon.

• 1928: She became acquainted with the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, a gentleman she had briefly met at an art preparatory school years earlier.
• 1929: Frida Kahlo marries fellow artist Diego Rivera. Frida worked full-time on painting, and most of her work symbolized her life’s painful events and her emblematic strength. She developed a unique surrealist style incorporating elements of indigenous art, Catholic ex-votos, folk art, and Renaissance portraiture.

• 1938: The Mexican artist Frida Kahlo displayed her first solo exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York and sold 25 paintings. 

• 1939: She divorced the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, but the couple remarried in 1940.

Image Credit: Wikipedia.

Frida After 1940

• 1949: Kahlo painted the famous Diego y yo. Because of the complications from the bus accident, her health deteriorated steadily in the following years. By 1950, the Mexican artist was dependent on a wheelchair.

• 1953: She had her first solo show at the Lola Álvarez Bravo Gallery in Mexico City. During the opening, a four-poster bed was placed in the gallery’s center for her to lie on.

• 1954: The Latin American artist passed away at 47, leaving about 200 paintings and sketches behind. About one-third of the artwork by this female artist comprises self-portraits. Kahlo’s work is displayed at famous museums and galleries like Fondation Beyeler, and she remains one of the true titans of 20th century art.

Think you can’t afford to invest in art? Think again. Learn more at Masterworks.

Image Credit: Bettmann // Getty Images / Masterworks.com.

What Is the Most Expensive Frida Kahlo Painting Ever Sold at Auction?

The 1949 Diego y yo (Diego and I) is the most expensive Frida Kahlo painting ever sold at an auction. This Frida Kahlo self portrait depicts teary eyed Kahlo and her husband (with a third eye) on her forehead. 

In Diego y yo, Kahlo is wearing a huipil — a type of blouse traditional to the women of southern Mexico. This feminist icon wears this red huipil in many of her famous self-portraits, as well as in a series of photographs by Nickolas Muray (a Hungarian-American portraitist).

The Diego y yo painting was sold at a 2021 Sotheby’s New York auction hosted by Oliver Barker (Chairman of Sotheby’s Europe) and Brooke Lampley (Sotheby’s Chairman and Worldwide Head of Sales for Global Fine Art). Oliver Barker started the bidding at around $4.5 million.

Image Credit: Roberto Serra – Iguana Press/Getty Images / Masterworks.com.

Bidders

Only two bidders competed for Frida Kahlo’s self-portrait over the phone on Sotheby’s Modern Evening Sale.

One bidder contacted Anna di Stasi, Sotheby’s senior vice president for Latin American art. Meanwhile, the other spoke to Julian Dawes, Sotheby’s co-head of Impressionist and Modern Art in New York. 

According to ABC News and the New York Times, the Latin American painting was sold to Eduardo F Costantini (a client of Anna di Stasi) for $34.9 million.

The winning buyer, Eduardo F Costantini, is the founder of the Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires (MALBA). According to the New York Times, Mr Costantini plans to display the work in his Latin American Art Museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Think you can’t afford to invest in art? Think again. Learn more at Masterworks.

Image Credit: Hulton Archive // Getty Images / Masterworks.com.

Latin American artwork

Diego y yo is the most expensive Latin American artwork piece sold at Sotheby’s New York Modern Evening Sale and any other art auction. 

The previous record was held by a 1931 Latin American painting called The Rivals by the Mexican artist Diego Rivera, Kahlo’s husband. It sold for $9.76 million at a 2018 Christie’s auction. 

This piece by Rivera inspired Frida Kahlo’s Diego y yo. It is one of the final self-portraits by the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

The “teary eyed Kahlo” painting was previously owned by a Chicago art historian and educator, Florence Arquin — the person to whom the portrait was dedicated. 

It was later sold to Mary-Anne Martin (a New York art dealer) for about $1.4 million at a 1990 Sothebys auction. Since then, it’s been stored in her private collection for over 30 years until it got recently sold to Mr Costantini.

This article originally appeared on MasterWorks.com and was syndicated by MediaFeed.org.

Image Credit: Andrew Hasson // Getty Images / Masterworks.com.

More from MediaFeed

5 of the world’s wealthiest family’s art collections that will blow your mind

Image Credit: James Kemp / Masterworks.com.