Frida Kahlo: Five Works

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Frida Kahlo: Five Works offers a rare chance to explore a selection of works by acclaimed Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. Since Kahlo’s death in 1954, her deeply emotional and vibrant paintings have garnered ever-increasing attention, transforming the celebrated artist into a global cultural phenomenon.

This installation features four paintings and a drawing on loan from a private collection, each acting as a vehicle for understanding larger aspects of Kahlo’s artistic practice, including her working methods and unique visual language. These works invite us to look closely, exploring their layered meanings and pondering their connections to Kahlo’s adventurous life.

FIVE WORKS

View of New York (Dedicated to Dolores
del Río) /Vista de Nueva York (dedicada
a Dolores del Río)

During one of their trips to New York, Kahlo and her husband, Diego
Rivera, stayed at the Barbizon-Plaza Hotel. Open about her dislike of
American capitalism and materialism, Kahlo was nevertheless
charmed by their room's mundane features. Although she captured
components of the skyline, she gave greater attention to her
immediate surroundings. Kahlo deftly represents the sheer curtain
and uniform brick wall, while rendering the radiator and the vent in
careful detail.

1932 Pencil on paper

Diego and Frida 1929–1944 /Diego y Frida
1929–1944

Sometimes described as a birthday gift for Diego Rivera, this work
also celebrates the couple’s almost 15-year relationship, noted by the
numbers painted on the frame. Their two fused faces grow out of a
heart-shaped knot of vegetation. Other elements suggest notions of
duality and opposing forces that, like Kahlo and Rivera, cannot exist
without one another: the sun and the moon, or the masculine and
the feminine, represented here by a conch and a scallop shell.

1944 Oil on Masonite with original shell frame

Sun and Life /Sol y vida

The rich vegetation in Sun and Life draws energy from a vibrant red
sun. Roots reach for the soil below, while ripening pods split open to
reveal glistening phallic appendages and embryonic interiors.

Highly educated, Kahlo drew on her knowledge of art history and
spirituality in the creation of her paintings. In Sun and Life, scholars
have identified allusions to Egyptian and Aztec mythology, as well as
elements from Italian Renaissance painting.

1947 Oil on Masonite

Still Life with Parrot and Flag /Naturaleza
muerta con loro y bandera

In the last years of her life, as her health deteriorated and medical
debt mounted, Kahlo turned increasingly to painting still lifes. She
confided in friends that they were easier to sell and easier to paint.
Scholars interpret this second comment to mean that for Kahlo still
lifes offered an opportunity to freely explore and express her
emotions, without the representational limitations inherent in
self-portraiture—her other most favored genre. Nevertheless, as
representations of her inner life, Kahlo’s still lifes are a type of self-portrait.

1951 Oil on Masonite

Still Life /Naturaleza muerta

At the start of 1950, Kahlo wrote to her dentist. Samuel Fastlicht, to
ask him to repair a dental bridge that was causing her pain. She
agreed to paint two works for him as payment, including this vivid
still life. The inscription on the pink flag reads “I belong to Samuel
Fastlicht. I was painted with all love, Frida Kahlo, in 1951. Coyoacán.”

Kahlo was familiar with European still-life traditions, but was
particularly drawn to a type produced in Puebla, Mexico, in the
mid-1800s. As in that tradition, Kahlo emphasizes the Mexican
identity of her work, including elements such as the small Mexican
flag and the clay vessel from Colima representing a xoloitzcuintli, an
indigenous hairless dog.

1951 Oil on Masonite

VIRTUAL TOUR

CONSERVING KAHLO

In preparation for this exhibition, three of the paintings were studied in the DMA’s paintings conservation studio. Using infrared photography, X-radiography, and microscopic examination, novel information was brought to light regarding Still Life with Parrot and Flag from 1951, Sun and Life from 1947, and Diego and Frida 1929–1944 from 1944. Infrared photography allows conservators to look through surface-level paint to the underlying preparatory layers. X-radiography, on the other hand, enables us to visualize compositional changes made in paint. This combination of imaging provided a fascinating new perspective into Frida Kahlo’s working methods.

Still Life with Parrot and Flag 1

In Still Life with Parrot and Flag, an initial planning drawing done in both thin lines and wide ink strokes shows how Kahlo simplified compositional elements in the final painting, especially with regard to shifting the size and shape of the fruits.

Still Life with Parrot and Flag 2

The most labored part of the underdrawing shows several adjustments made to the parrot’s wing and beak, and changes made to the adjacent mango. The underdrawing observed in each painting made clear that Kahlo had a strong vision for the overall composition of each work, regardless of the subtle changes made in the painting process.

Diego and Frida

Infrared photography revealed a small inscription on one of the shells attached to the frame on Diego and Frida. This inscription reads “Recuerdo de Veracruz” and was subsequently covered by red paint, probably by Kahlo herself. Frames like this one would have likely been found in the tourist market of Veracruz; here, it is a special hidden detail that gives us an intimate glimpse into the past life of the object.

Sun and Life

The X-ray taken of Sun and Life revealed an exciting evolution observed in the painting: although Kahlo’s basic composition was generally set from the underdrawing to the early painting phase, the details evolved significantly in later phases of painting. The plant pods surrounding the sun, for example, largely began closed but opened gradually during the painting process.

Another interesting discovery is the fetus-like element directly behind the sun, which emerged as Frida finalized the painting, in contrast to the X-ray that reveals a closed pod.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Considered one of Mexico’s greatest artists, Frida Kahlo was born Magdalena Carmen Frieda (Frida) Kahlo y Calderón, in Coyoacán, Mexico City, on July 6, 1907. She grew up in the family home where she was born, later referred to as the Blue House (La Casa Azul). A bus accident in 1925 left her unable to bear a child, and she underwent 32 operations throughout her life. Pain and suffering are common themes she addresses in her art.

Kahlo first met Mexican muralist Diego Rivera in 1922. As a teen and young adult, Kahlo became more politically and artistically active. Kahlo and Rivera reconnected in 1928 and married in 1929. (They divorced in 1939 but remarried in 1940.) Despite their relationship, Kahlo maintained a unique, personal visual language and developed a very particular means of expressing Mexican traditions and her experience as a woman of the time. Although the French writer and founder of Surrealism André Breton interpreted Kahlo’s work as Surrealist, she never identified with that movement.

In the last years of her life, Kahlo’s health rapidly declined; she was mostly confined to La Casa Azul and to using a wheelchair and crutches. Kahlo died on July 13, 1954 in Coyoacán, Mexico City at the age of 47. Her ashes are housed at La Casa Azul, which was opened as a museum in 1958. Frida Kahlo gained widespread international recognition beginning in the 1980s.

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