The legacy of Frida Kahlo in art-world lore is often drawn in broad strokes: the bus accident that left her in a full-body cast for months and in debilitating pain for the rest of her life; the engrossing, morose, surrealist self-portraits that earned her international recognition; the tumultuous marriage to famed artist and mentor Diego Rivera; her commanding eyebrows beneath jet-black braids.
Defined by both her failing, bedridden body and her determination to transcend those physical limitations through her work (“I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best,” she once said) Kahlo’s enigmatic private life was made even more so by the decades after her death in 1954 during which her personal effects—over 20,000 objects, including 6,500 photographs—were sealed from public view at the request of Rivera.
“Frida Kahlo: Her Photos,” opening was in feb. at the Artisphere arts center in Arlington, Virginia, features a fraction of that massive collection, made public in 2007. As the first and only space in the Unites States to showcase over 250 never-before-seen photographs of and by Kahlo (the prints are actually meticulous facsimiles; Rivera decreed that none of the originals be taken out of Mexico), the show highlights the importance of the medium in Kahlo’s life and art. “Kahlo learned about photography from her grandfather and her father—both professional photographers,” explains Cynthia Connolly of the exhibition, which is curated by Mexican photographer Pablo Ortiz Monasterio. “When you think about Frida being influenced by her father’s work, you have to consider that [he took] very formal portraits.”
As a tip of the hat to her teacher, the first photo greeting visitors is a portrait of her father, and the second, a picture of Kahlo painting her father, captured by him. The hundreds of images that follow are organized around six central themes in the artist’s life. Among them, the “The Broken Body,” featuring shots of Kahlo in the hospital; “Diego’s Eye,” showcasing objects that he likely referenced in his grand, nationalistic murals; and “The Blue House,” a glimpse into the whimsical, vibrant estate in which Kahlo was born and spent her life.
Shot predominantly in black-and-white, the small images play off of the transition from formal photography to the era of the casual snapshot of the thirties and forties (many include Kahlo’s handwritten notes on the back). One captures a brazen Kahlo casting a challenging look as she lounges on a bed with an unidentified person, another shows a close-up of her older and more somber with flowers in her hair and her lover, the American photographer Nickolas Muray, smiling over her shoulder. Though rare, the occasional acerbic color shocks of early Kodachrome technology are also present. In one such image, Kahlo is clad in a red cardigan and blue-and-white gingham shirt, tenderly holding a monkey and looking, strikingly, like one of her own painted portraits.
