Frida Kahlo’s teary self-portrait could break the record as the artists’s most expensive piece of art ever auctioned. The painting features the Mexican artist with tears in her eyes and Diego Rivera’s face painted on her forehead.
This piece is named Diego y yo, and was painted in 1949. It aims to break 2016’s record. The Latin American art sells for 30 million dollars. That’s more than twice the price of Two Nudes in a Forest.
The Sotheby’s house is in charge of auctioning the art. According to Razon, the news surprised collectors because this is the first time in 30 years that Diego y yo have been auctioned.
It was purchased by a private collector for 1.4 million dollars in 1990. This marked the first time that a Latin American piece art had been bid over one million dollars.
“It is an emblematic work,” said the director of Latin American Art at Sotheby’s, Anna Di Stasi, to EFE, adding that Diego y yo is a “fundamental” piece for the artist. “This is the decade in which she paints her great works, especially those that make Kahlo’s contribution to modern and surrealist art recognized,” According to the expert,
Di Stasi explained that the canvas is a representation of the turbulent relationship between Kahlo Rivera. “Here, her loose hair almost seems to strangle her; she has flushed cheeks and an intense, tearful look,” Sotheby’s said in a press release.
“The painting captures an inner restlessness and anguish, reflected movingly in three tears that flow from her eyes evoking Our Lady of Sorrows, an iconic image in the history of Western art,” The document was elaborated.