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

MEXICO CITY -- MEXICO CITY (AP) — Frida Kahlo’s “El sueño (La cama)” — successful English, “The Dream (The Bed)” — is causing a disturbance among creation historians arsenic its estimated $40 cardinal to $60 cardinal terms tag would marque it the astir costly enactment by immoderate pistillate oregon Latin American creator erstwhile it goes to auction aboriginal this month.

Sotheby’s auction location volition enactment the coating up for merchantability connected Nov. 20 successful New York aft exhibiting it successful London, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong and Paris.

“This is simply a infinitesimal of a batch of speculation,” said Mexican creation historiographer Helena Chávez Mac Gregor, a researcher astatine UNAM’s Institute of Aesthetic Research and writer of “El listón y la bomba. El arte de Frida Kahlo.” (The ribbon and the bomb. The creation of Frida Kahlo).

In Mexico, Kahlo’s enactment is protected by a declaration of creator monument, meaning pieces wrong the state cannot beryllium sold oregon destroyed. However, works from backstage collections overseas — similar the coating successful question, whose proprietor remains unrevealed — are legally eligible for planetary sale.

“The strategy of declaring Mexican modern creator practice is precise anomalous,” said Mexican curator Cuauhtémoc Medina, an creation historiographer and specializer successful modern art.

“El sueño (La cama)” was created successful 1940 pursuing Kahlo's travel to Paris, wherever she came into interaction with the surrealists.

Contrary to modern belief, the skull connected 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 bully implicit evil, representing Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus.

In the painting, the skeleton is elaborate with firecrackers, flowers connected its ribs and a smiling grimace — a item inspired by a cardboard skeleton Kahlo really kept successful the canopy of her ain bed.

Kahlo “spent a batch of clip successful furniture waiting for death,” said Chávez Mac Gregor. “She had a precise analyzable beingness due to the fact that of each the illnesses and carnal challenges with which she lived.”

Although Kahlo’s coating is being auctioned alongside works by surrealists similar Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning, she did not see herself a subordinate of the movement, contempt having met its founder, André Breton, successful Mexico and had an accumulation organized by him successful Paris successful 1939.

“Breton was fascinated by Frida’s work, due to the fact that helium saw that surrealist tone there,” said Chávez Mac Gregor.

Kahlo, a committed communist, considered surrealism — a question proposing a gyration of consciousness — to beryllium bourgeois. As Chávez Mac Gregor noted, “Frida ever had a captious region from that.”

Despite this, specialists person recovered elements of surrealism successful Kahlo’s enactment related to the dreamlike, to an interior satellite and to a revolutionary and intersexual state — a conception disposable successful a furniture suspended successful the entity with Kahlo sleeping among a vine.

“El sueño (La cama)” was past exhibited successful the 1990s, and aft the auction, it could vanish from nationalist presumption erstwhile again, a destiny shared by galore paintings acquired for ample sums astatine auction.

There are exceptions, including “Diego y yo” ( “Diego and I”), which acceptable Kahlo’s grounds merchantability terms erstwhile it sold for $34.9 cardinal successful 2021.

The painting, depicting the creator and her hubby muralist Diego Rivera, was acquired by Argentine concern proprietor Eduardo Costantini and past lent to the Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires (Malba) wherever it remains connected exhibit.

Medina, the creation historian, regretted that the “crazy-priced” purchases person reduced creation to a specified economical value.

He lamented that erstwhile funds acquisition creation arsenic specified investments — similar buying shares successful a nationalist institution — the works are often relegated to tax-free zones to debar costs. Their fate, helium said, “may beryllium worse; they whitethorn extremity up successful a refrigerator astatine Frankfurt airdrome for decades to come.”

The existent merchantability grounds for a enactment by a pistillate creator is held by Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1,” which fetched $44.4 cardinal astatine Sotheby’s successful 2014.

However, the auction marketplace inactive reflects a profound disparity arsenic nary pistillate creator has yet exceeded the maximum merchantability terms of a antheral artist. The existent benchmark is “Salvator Mundi,” attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, which was auctioned by Christie’s for $450.3 cardinal successful 2017.