Frida Kahlo self-portrait sets auction record for Latin American painting

Auctioneer Oliver Barker, Chairman of Sotheby's Europe, sells a Frida Kahlo self portrait for $34.9 Million USD during an art auction, in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S.

A self-portrait by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo featuring her husband, artist Diego Rivera, sold at auction on Tuesday for $34.9 million, the highest price ever paid for a painting by a Latin American artist.

Completed in 1949, Kahlo's "Diego y yo" (Diego and I) went under the hammer at Sotheby's in New York and sold to an unidentified buyer. The price included $3.9 million in fees, the auction house said.

"This is one of the most important works by Kahlo ever to come to auction and we're thrilled that it should be at Sotheby's," Oliver Barker, Sotheby's auctioneer and senior director, said as he opened the bidding.

The painting shows a teary-eyed Kahlo with her hair loose around her, a portrait of Rivera bearing a third eye embedded above her brow.