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»Diego y yo«: Self-portrait by Frida Kahlo showing the face of her husband on the artist's forehead
Photo: dpa
Paintings by the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo and the French Pierre Soulages have been auctioned for record prices in New York.
Kahlo's self-portrait "Diego y yo" (Diego and I) from 1949 changed hands on Tuesday evening for 34.9 million dollars (30.7 million euros) at the Sotheby's auction house.
The work, created five years before Kahlo's death, shows the artist with a second portrait of her partner Rivera on her forehead.
It was last auctioned for $ 1.4 million in 1990.
According to Sotheby's, the painting was bought by the Eduardo F. Costantini collection, named after the Argentine entrepreneur, art collector and founder of the Museum of Latin American Arts in Buenos Aires (Malba).
"Diego y yo" will thus be the most expensive Latin American work of art to be auctioned to date.
The previous record was held by the painting "Los Rivales" (1931) by Diego Rivera himself, which was auctioned for $ 9.76 million in 2018.
The previous record price for a Frida Kahlo painting was eight million dollars in 2016.
Heated competition for Soulages work
A painting by the French contemporary artist Soulages, which had been privately owned for more than 30 years, found a new owner after heated competition for $ 20.2 million.
The work, created in 1961, comes from the artist's red creative period, who became famous primarily for his use of the color black.
In the run-up to the auction, the work had been estimated at eight to twelve million dollars.
sak / dpa