A self-portrait by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, which sold at auction for $54.7 million, marked a new price record for paintings created by women. The canvas, titled “The Dream (The Bed),” dates back to 1940. According to information provided by the Associated Press, the previous record, held by Georgia O’Keeffe’s painting “Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1,” which sold for $44.4 million in 2014, was surpassed. The world-renowned Mexican painter Frida Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907; her father was a photographer of German descent. She contracted polio at an early age, and at eighteen, she was involved in a catastrophic traffic accident that resulted in numerous fractures. Despite a series of surgical interventions, the future artist’s will was not broken: it was while recovering in the hospital that she picked up a paintbrush.
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