Roots

After making a big purchase, sometimes you just need a stiff drink.

So....

Roots, a 1943 small oil on metal painting by Frida Kahlo, completed after she remarried her lifelong love, Diego Rivera and symbolizing their unity after years of pain of suffering, was put for auction by Marilyn Oshman, a Houston art collector.

I am not a museum said Oshman, and I didn't like feeling that walking into my house was like walking into a bank vault.

Fair enough. Oshman, whose fortune came from the Oshman's Sporting Goods chain, owned the painting since 1982. Back then, Kahlo paintings weren't expensive. In the late 1970s, Sotheby's struggled to sell a major work for $20,000.

Roots was sold for $5.62 million, a record as the most expensive Latin American work ever purchased at auction as well as becoming the most expensive Kahlo ever sold at auction.

The previous Latin American record was held by Kahlo's 1929 Self-Portrait that fetched $5,065,750 at Sotheby's New York in May of 2000 which, at the time, was a also record for a female artist at auction.

Now for the drinking - how to celebrate your purchase?

Why, with Frida Tequila of course!

Oh, yeah. Frida Kahlo Tequila is made in the highlands of Jalisco, Mexico. Kahlo's publicity and profit seeking niece Isolda says:

It has been an exciting adventure to develop and launch a product that woulcharacterizese my Aunt Frida - her love for Mexico, her strength and her passion for life. Tequila, her favoritete drink, accompanied her in the greatest moments of her life.

Okay, Isolda. Most biographies claim that Frida drank a bottle of tequila a day to quell the pain from her devastating injuries and heartbreak. Could be the greatest moments of her life. I suppose.

It comes in three varieties, retailing at $50, $65 and $90 a bottle. Each bottle bears a picture of Kahlo and sells under the slogan Being original is no sin.

(Which reminds me of the Paula Poundstone observation - she saw a billboard that said The wages of sin are death. She remarked: Well, sure, but once they take taxes out, it's more like just a tired feeling...)