(BUENOS AIRES) Mexican artist Frida Kahlo’s iconic self-portrait, the most expensive Latin American painting in history, is on display for the first time in a quarter century at a museum in Buenos Aires whose founder bought it.
Updated at 10:16 am
Diego y Yo (Diego and Me), directed by Frida Kahlo 1949, was purchased at auction in New York in November for $34.9 million for the “Collection Eduardo F. Costantini” of the Argentine entrepreneur and collector, founder of the Latin American Museum. Arts in Buenos Aires (Malba).
The painting will be the main attraction in the exhibition from Friday Tercer Ojo (Third Eye), where Eduardo Costantini presents his private collection, which also includes works by Cuban Wifredo Lam, Mexicans Miguel Covarrubias and Rosa Rolanda, and Brazilian Vicente do Rego Montero.
Diego y Yo, an oil on hardboard, contains the intense gaze of Kahlo’s self-portraits. The face of her husband, the painter Diego Rivera, appears on her forehead, and a few tears fall from Kahlo’s black eyes. Rivera approached a famous Mexican actress at the time, a source of discomfort expressed in Kahlo’s painting.
For me, Frida is a unique artist. She had a dramatic life, which she described unashamedly, spontaneously and openly. I think people love her.
Eduardo Costantini, founder of the Museum of Latin American Arts (Malba) in Buenos Aires
Malba’s exhibition, presented to the press on Wednesday, presents more than 240 works, many of which have not been exhibited publicly for nearly three decades. This is the case Diego y YoSince 1998, Eduardo Costanti has underlined.
By winning $34.9 million at Sotheby’s, Diego y YoFormerly in the hands of a collector, it surpassed Diego Rivera’s record for a single painting and became the most expensive Latin American painting in history (Los rivals1931) sold at auction in 2018 for US$9.76 million.
