Why we pay less for art by women
Why we pay less for art by women
A self-portrait by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo is expected to break records when it goes up for auction in New York this week.
The surrealist painting, being sold on November 20 by a private collector, is generating a frenzy of excitement, with experts predicting it could become the most expensive work by a female artist ever sold. That record is currently held by Georgia O’Keeffe’s 1932 painting “Jimson Weed/White Flower No.1,” which fetched $44.4 million in 2014.
Auctioneers at Sotheby’s have valued “El sueño (La cama)” — “The Dream (The Bed)” — at between $40 and $60 million. Kahlo, who died in 1954, already holds the second-highest auction record for a female artist. “Diego y yo” (“Diego and I”), a self-portrait from 1949, featuring her husband, the artist Diego Rivera, fetched $34.9 million in 2021.
While these are hefty price tags, they are dwarfed by the equivalent for works by men. Even if Kahlo’s painting hits the upper valuation, it will be just a fraction of the male record. Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” sold for an astounding $450.3 million at Christies in 2017.
(article with photos at link) https://archive.ph/f7LhA
By Lianne Kolirin (CNN)
A self-portrait by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo is expected to break records when it goes up for auction in New York this week.
The surrealist painting, being sold on November 20 by a private collector, is generating a frenzy of excitement, with experts predicting it could become the most expensive work by a female artist ever sold. That record is currently held by Georgia O’Keeffe’s 1932 painting “Jimson Weed/White Flower No.1,” which fetched $44.4 million in 2014.
Auctioneers at Sotheby’s have valued “El sueño (La cama)” — “The Dream (The Bed)” — at between $40 and $60 million. Kahlo, who died in 1954, already holds the second-highest auction record for a female artist. “Diego y yo” (“Diego and I”), a self-portrait from 1949, featuring her husband, the artist Diego Rivera, fetched $34.9 million in 2021.
While these are hefty price tags, they are dwarfed by the equivalent for works by men. Even if Kahlo’s painting hits the upper valuation, it will be just a fraction of the male record. Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” sold for an astounding $450.3 million at Christies in 2017.
(article with photos at link) https://archive.ph/f7LhA