ghhh7.com | The 10 Most Expensive Artworks by Women

Reports predict that when Frida Kahlo’s El sueño (La cama) (1940; The Dream [The Bed]) goes under the hammer in November at Sotheby’s auction house in New York City, it may trounce more than one record. With a low estimate of $40 million, the painting will probably beat Kahlo’s previous auction apogee of $34.9 million for Diego y yo (1949; Diego and I). But El sueño’s high estimate of $60 million suggests that it could also topple Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 (1932), which was purchased for $44.4 million in 2014, from the highest spot on the list of most expensive artworks by women sold at auction. Find out what other art tops the roster.

ghhh7.com - Georgia O’Keeffe, Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 (1932): $44.4 million

Georgia O’Keeffe has held the record for the most expensive artwork by women sold at auction since 2014, when the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, acquired Jimson Weed for $44.4 million with fees at Sotheby’s in New York City.

ghhh7.com - Frida Kahlo, Diego y yo (1949): $34.9 million

Hyped by Sotheby’s as Frida Kahlo’s final bust self-portrait, Diego y yo (1949) was purchased for $34.9 million with fees in 2021 at the auction house in New York City. Kahlo became not only one of the most expensive women artists at auction but also the most expensive Latin American artist. The portrait annihilated the previous record, which had been set by Kahlo’s husband, Diego Rivera, when The Rivals was purchased at Christie’s in New York City for $9.8 million with fees in 2018.

Louise Bourgeois, cast one of an edition of six of Spider (1996): $32.8 million

Louise Bourgeois’s monumental arachnids have fetched the highest prices at auction for sculptures made by a woman. Three casts from an edition of six of Spider (1996) dominate this list. The leading auction sale was from 2023, when the first cast of Spider was bought at Sotheby’s in New York City for $32.8 million with fees. An even larger sum had been achieved the previous year, when a different Spider sculpture from 1996 was reported to have gone for $40 million during the Art Basel art fair in Switzerland in a private sale, not at auction.

Louise Bourgeois, cast two of six of Spider (1996): $32 million

The price for the second cast of an edition of six of Bourgeois’s Spider (1996) closely follows the first. In 2019 the sculpture went for what was then a record-breaking $32 million with fees at Christie’s in New York City.

Joan Mitchell, Untitled (c. 1959): $29.2 million

In November 2023 two paintings by Abstract Expressionist Joan Mitchell went under the hammer in New York City, and the first, Untitled (c. 1959), a lushly colored canvas of gestural strokes, broke the artist’s auction record when it was bought at Christie’s for $29.2 million with fees.

Leonora Carrington, Les distractions de Dagobert (1945): $28.5 million

In 2024 Leonora Carrington’s Les distractions de Dagobert, a Surrealist tableau depicting the 7th-century Merovingian king, was acquired by Eduardo F. Costantini for $28.5 million from Sotheby’s in New York City. The founder of the Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires was determined to procure the artist’s masterpiece after having been outbid for the painting when it went for $475,500 (about $990,000 today) at the same auction house in 1995.

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Louise Bourgeois, cast three of six of Spider (1996): $28.2 million

Part of the same edition as the other two sculptures in this inventory, the third of six casts of Bourgeois’s Spider (1996) fetched $28.2 million plus fees at Christie’s in New York City in 2015.

Joan Mitchell, Sunflowers (1990–91): $27.9 million

The second of Mitchell’s paintings to go to auction in November 2023 was a late work. Sunflowers (1990–91) sold at Sotheby’s in New York City for the impressive amount of $27.9 million, days after her painting Untitled (c. 1959) had sold downtown at Christie’s in New York City for the record-breaking $29.2 million.

Georgia O’Keeffe, White Rose with Larkspur No. I (1927): $26.7 million

O’Keeffe’s florals consistently do well at auction, and White Rose with Larkspur No. I (1927) was no exception. It brought in $26.7 million with fees at Christie’s in New York City in 2022.

Joan Mitchell, Noon (c. 1969): $22.6 million

Rounding out this inventory is a third work by Mitchell: Noon. The vibrant canvas was painted about 1969, a year after the artist had moved to Vétheuil, France, a town northwest of Paris that was once home to Claude Monet. The painting was purchased in 2024 at Sotheby’s in New York City for $22.6 million.