An Argentine businessman bought Frida Kahlo’s self-portrait for $ 34.9 million

Businessman Argentine Eduardo Constantini He was the buyer of the self-portrait of Frida Kahlo that this Tuesday became the most expensive work of a Latin American artist in history sold at auction, reaching 34.9 million dollars, Sotheby’s confirmed to Efe.

The auction house specified that Constantini, a renowned art collector and founder of the Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires (MALBA), bought the work for his private collection, and not for the Argentine gallery.

Recently, Constantini acquired other works of art by important Hispanic artists for the MALBA, such as “Omi Obini” (1943), by the Cuban Wifredo Lam, for which he paid 9.6 million dollars, and “Armonía (Suggestive Self-portrait)” ( 1956), by the Spanish Remedios Varo, for 6.2 million dollars, both historical prices for these painters.

The self-portrait “Diego y yo”, by Frida Kahlo, made history this Tuesday at a Sotheby’s auction in New York, setting a never-before-seen price for a work by a Latin American artist in a sale to the highest bidder when it sold for $ 34.9 million, also quadrupling the previous all-time high of its own. $ 8 million Mexican painter achieved in 2016.

The work, of small dimensions —30 centimeters high and 22.4 wide—, is a close-up self-portrait of Kahlo that was completed in 1949, a few years before her death, and broke the record already in the first bid in Sotheby’s New York headquarters, which was $ 26 million.

The piece, last sold three decades ago, symbolizes the tempestuous relationship between Kahlo and Diego Rivera, which appears drawn on the forehead of the Mexican and which in turn has a third eye, an element with which she tries to represent the continuous presence of her husband in her mind.

The painting not only smashed the previous record of the Mexican, but also fell a long way from the previous historical maximum in auction of a Latin American artist, which was precisely supported by her husband, Diego Rivera, with the painting “Los Rivales”, which It was sold by Christie’s in 2018 for $ 9.7 million.

Before sale, Sotheby’s already estimated that it would sell for between 30 and 50 million dollars, not only because of the artistic level of the painting, but also because of the time of sale, when the works of women artists of the 20th century are being revalued, and when a deep interest is being shown towards surrealist Latin American artists. (E)