Paintings by Mexican Frida Kahlo and French Pierre Soulages broke auction records at Sotheby’s on Tuesday evening, November 16 in New York. Already on Monday, Sotheby’s had broken its historic record for a single auction evening, by selling, for 676 million dollars, 35 works from the very famous collection of modern and contemporary art Macklowe.
$ 34.9 million for “Diego y yo” by Frida Kahlo
Self-portrait of Frida Kahlo Diego and I (Diego and me, 1949) was sold for $ 34.9 million (30.7 million euros), smashing the old record of the legendary Mexican painter ($ 8 million in 2016).
Acquired by the Eduardo F. Costantini collection, founder of the Museum of Latin American Arts in Buenos Aires (Argentina), the painting by frida Kahlo Diego and I became with this sale the most expensive work of Latin American art in history auctioned. The previous record was held by a painting by … Diego Rivera, The Rivals (1931), sold for $ 9.76 million by Christie’s in 2018.
Oil on Masonite is emblematic of the self-portraits with an intense and enigmatic gaze that made the Mexican painter, icon of feminism, famous around the world, who died in 1954 at the age of 47.
But on this one, Diego Rivera’s face appears on Frida’s forehead, above her black eyes, from which a few tears seem to escape. Diego Rivera, who at the time was close to the Mexican actress Maria Felix, is represented with a third eye, a sign of the torments he causes to his wife.
$ 20.2 million for a Soulages of the Red Period
During the same sale, a painting by Pierre Soulages estimated between 8 and 12 million dollars soared to 20.2 million dollars (17.7 million euros) after a breathless battle between several buyers. It largely beats the previous sales record of the French painter (9.6 million euros in Paris in 2019).
The painting by Pierre Soulages, which had spent more than 30 years in a private collection, corresponds to the red period of the century-old French artist, who became famous for his excellence in the mastery of black. Painted on August 4, 1961, its material effects were obtained using the scraping technique, which reveals the red hues under the black, explains Sotheby’s.
Claude Monet sold for $ 50.8 million
One of the other highlights of the evening was the sale of a painting by impressionist Claude Monet, Corner of the water lily pond (1918), for $ 50.8 million (44.7 million euros), far from its record of $ 110.7 million in 2019, still in New York.
After several mixed seasons due to the pandemic, New York’s fall 2021 sales results look positive, with auction houses claiming to have found a sufficient supply to meet demand that has remained strong.
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