Photograph: Guillermo Kahlo/Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera Archive, Bank of Mexico, Fiduciary in the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Museum Trust
More than 60 years after her death, painter Frida Kahlo and her Casa Azul in Mexico City are still a source of admiration and inspiration. Her life is as intricate as her paintings and revered all over the world. Here are some iconic images celebrating her life in Caza Azul.
In 1943, Frida posed with her painting “Diego on My Mind” (left) a self-portrait featuring the traditional Tehuana costume. On the right, Frida is holding her pet monkey in the courtyard of her blue house.
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera have been known for having one of the art world’s most notoriously turbulent marriages. Both artists were guilty of having multiple affairs and straying away from their marriage, breaking up and getting back together only to become one again. Yet, despite their hard times, the Mexican artists had a bond that transcended the ages and one that has stirred countless discussions about their passion and love.
In a series of love letters from Kahlo to Rivera published in The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait readers are given insight into both the anguish and longing that was woven into their marriage.
One letter, recently shared by the Instagram page @historycoolkids, shows a momentary rift in their marriage when Kahlo was preparing to have her leg amputated.
Written in 1953, the letter for Rivera was written while Kahlo was in the hospital.
It reads:
”I’m writing this letter from a hospital room before I am admitted into the operating theatre. They want me to hurry, but I am determined to finish writing first, as I don’t want to leave anything unfinished. Especially now that I know what they are up to. They want to hurt my pride by cutting a leg off. When they told me it would be necessary to amputate, the news didn’t affect me the way everybody expected. No, I was already a maimed woman when I lost you, again, for the umpteenth time maybe, and still I survived. I am not afraid of pain and you know it. It is almost inherent to my being, although I confess that I suffered, and a great deal, when you cheated on me, every time you did it, not just with my sister but with so many other women. How did they let themselves be fooled by you?
Let’s not fool ourselves, Diego, I gave you everything that is humanly possible to offer and we both know that. But still, how the hell do you manage to seduce so many women when you’re such an ugly son of a bitch? The reason why I’m writing is not to accuse you of anything more than we’ve already accused each other of in this and however many more bloody lives. It’s because I’m having a leg cut off (damned thing, it got what it wanted in the end). I told you I’ve counted myself as incomplete for a long time, but why the fuck does everybody else need to know about it too? Now my fragmentation will be obvious for everyone to see, for you to see… That’s why I’m telling you before you hear it on the grapevine. I’m writing to let you know I’m releasing you, I’m amputating you. Be happy and never seek me again. I don’t want to hear from you, I don’t want you to hear from me. If there is anything I’d enjoy before I die, it’d be not having to see your fucking horrible bastard face wandering around my garden. That is all, I can now go to be chopped up in peace. Good bye from somebody who is crazy and vehemently in love with you, Your Frida”
Despite the letter, Kahlo didn’t “amputate” Rivera out of her life completely.
Fans of Kahlo called her letter “badass” and the greatest they’d ever read. “She was such a talent and such a twisted soul,” one user wrote in the post’s comment sections.
That part where she wonders why Diego was able to be such a womanizer despite being an “ugly son of a bitch” does pretty much make her badass.
Frida Kahlo - La Mesa Herida - The wounded Table - Der verwundete Tisch / YouTube
Frida Kahlo is one of the most iconic artists in global history. The Mexican artist was known for blazing her own path both in art and in society. One of her most famous paintings “The Wounded Table” has been missing for 65 years but one art dealer claims he found it.
A Spanish art dealer claims to have found a long-lost Frida Kahlo painting.
The frenzy over Kahlo’s artistic legacy makes a new claim about the whereabouts of The Wounded Table all the more enticing, but it also gives researchers all the more reason to be skeptical. https://t.co/rEBkjn90iK
— Smithsonian Magazine (@SmithsonianMag) July 7, 2020
Kahlo painted “The Wounded Table” in 1940 and over the years it disappeared. It is unknown if it was returned to Moscow, was lost, or destroyed. All that is known is that Kahlo’s largest painting to that date is gone.
Cristian López Márquez, a little known art dealer in Spain, claims to have found the long-lost and highly sought after painting. According to La Voz de Galicia, the art dealers claims to have acquired the painting from some who settled in Spain from Mexico.
The painting is one of Kahlo’s most famous works of art.
The Wounded Table was Kahlo’s biggest work to date at the time of its creation. Measuring nearly 4 feet tall and 8 feet wide, the painting depicts the artist seated at a table, possibly in a darkly ironic riff on Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. https://t.co/IQ6hnNFZ33
— Jesús Serafín Pérez (@JesusSerafinP) July 7, 2020
The decades-long mystery about where the painting ended up does add to the allure of the claim. However, people are not convinced that the painting is a fake that is being peddled by someone who is after money by selling an inauthentic painting. To make matters more skeptical, the art dealer has very few details but is adamant about its authenticity.
“Time will give us the truth,” Márquez told AP. “Whoever proves genuine interest and the ability to pay the figure of 40 million euros, can spend as much time as wanted with their experts analyzing the work.”
Despite Márquez’s claims, art historians are very skeptical that the painting is true.
#Art historians strongly reject the idea that the mystery of the whereabouts of #FridaKahlo’s The Wounded Table has been solved for the work for sale shares similarities with inaccurate replicas of the long-lost paintinghttps://t.co/CB8alJ0D5O
— EL UNIVERSAL English (@Univ_inenglish) July 1, 2020
Márquez claims to have the painting safe in a warehouse in London. He has put the painting on sale asking for $45 million. No one seems to be biting but Márquez continues to say the painting is an original.
