Frida Kahlo’s self-portrait Diego y yo has sold for $34.9 million. The record-shattering sale on Tuesday night at a Sotheby’s auction marks the most money ever paid at auction for a Latin American artist’s work. It obliterates the previous record, held by Kahlo’s husband Diego Rivera, whose work The Rivals was auctioned off for $9.8 million in 2018. Kahlo and Rivera were famous for their tempestuous relationship, and Diego y yo is thought to depict Kahlo’s pain over an affair her husband had with a friend. “You could call tonight’s result the ultimate revenge, but in fact it is the ultimate validation of Kahlo’s extraordinary talent and global appear,” Anna Di Stasi, Sotheby’s director of Latin American art, said in a statement.
Diego y yo, painted in 1949 and described as the last of Kahlo’s “great self-portraits,” shows her with tears flowing from her eyes. An image of Rivera is superimposed on her forehead. “She has such a powerful gaze,” Di Stasi said. “She just stares at you, and she just cuts through.”
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