The Mexican artist’s work is the centerpiece of an exhibition at the Museum of Latin American Art. It was sold at an auction in New York in 2021 for a record sum.
Frida Kahlo’s self-portrait, Diego y yo Diego, can now be seen in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires.
(dpa)
The most expensive work by an artist from Latin America ever auctioned can now be seen in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires. The self-portrait “Diego y yo” (Diego and I) by the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) is the centerpiece of the exhibition “Tercer ojo” (Third Eye) which opened on Thursday evening (local time) in the art museum “Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires» (Malba) was opened. The museum’s founder, Argentine entrepreneur Eduardo Costantini, bought the painting for a record $34.9 million at an auction in New York last November.
“Diego y yo” from 1949 shows the face of the iconic Mexican painter with her husband Diego Rivera’s head on his forehead. It is the last self-portrait Kahlo made before her death in 1954. The work represents Kahlo’s passionate but difficult relationship with the famous muralist, from whom she temporarily divorced before later remarrying. The painting was last publicly displayed in 1998 and was then in a private collection in the US before being auctioned in 2021.
The exhibition “Tercer ojo” combines Costantini’s private collection with the existing collection of the Malba Museum. On display are 240 works by important Latin American artists such as Diego Rivera, Tarsila do Amaral, Xul Solar, Joaquín Torres García, Emilio Pettoruti, Wifredo Lam, Roberto Matta, Maria Martins, Remedios Varo, Antonio Berni and Jorge de la Vega.