Frida Kahlo (Mexican, 19071954). The Love Embrace of the Universe, 1949. Oil on Masonite, 27 ½ x 23 ¾ in. (70 x 60.5 cm). The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of 20th Century Mexican Art and the Vergel Foundation. © 2018 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New YorkArtists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Born from a rough diary sketch drawn in 1947, Frida Kahlo two years later channeled Mexican mythology to pour her most visceral and spiritual emotions in rich oil onto a complex masonite (hardboard) canvas that compels multiple views. “The Love Embrace of the Universe” depicts the renowned Mexican artist cradling her husband, artist Diego Rivera, like a helpless, plump, oversized baby with the face and features of a man. Despite his diminutive pose, a naked Rivera is anointed with a third eye on his forehead, symbolizing wisdom.
The obvious conflict in this elaborate painting is art imitating the couple’s thorny, often tenuous, relationship. The couple is embraced by the Aztec fertility goddess, Cihuacōātl, sometimes called Quilaztli, and associated with sweat baths where midwives practiced. The painting is a dance of darkness and light, with myriad contradictory images at play. Kahlo reportedly had several miscarriages. Among her many maladies throughout her short life, she was injured when a bus she was riding collided with a trolly at age 18, leaving her unable to conceive a child.
It’s one of ten Kahlo paintings, a selection of drawings, and photographs of the artist by photographer Nickolas Muray, famous for his portraits of Hollywood starlets, fencing expertise, and his love affair with Kahlo, on display at the Brooklyn Museum’s “Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving,” which opens Feb. 8.
Besides the artwork and photographs, personal items from her Mexico City home, La Casa Azul (The Blue House), will make their public debut in the U.S. The largest U.S. exhibition featuring the artist in a decade will reveal possessions from La Casa Azul, including Tehuana clothing, contemporary and Mesoamerican jewelry, cosmetics, letters and hand-painted corsets and prosthetics.
Related historical film and ephemera, along with objects from the Brooklyn Museum’s vast collection of Mesoamerican art, will be on display until May 12 in an exploration of politics, gender, fashion, national identities, and disability, that is central to understanding Kahlo’s self-expression in her highly biographical work.
After Kahlo died in 1954 at age 47, Rivera ordered their personal belongings to be locked up at La Casa Azul, and left untouched until 15 years after his death in 1957 at age 70. They were unearthed in 2004 and inventoried.
Kahlo spent most of 1950 in a hospital, where she underwent a new bone graft surgery on her spine, resulting in an infection that required multiple follow-up surgeries. Upon discharge, she was mostly confined to La Casa Azul, relying on a wheelchair and crutches. Her right leg was amputated at the knee in 1953 because of gangrene.
She was mostly bedridden during her final years, stricken with bronchopneumonia. Despite her rapid decline, a Communist as dedicated to politics as she was to art, Kahlo appeared in public for the last time in 1954 with Rivera to take part in a demonstration against the CIA invasion of Guatemala.
“Focused on the life and work of Frida Kahlo, the show comes at an important time, when it is critical to build cultural bridges between the United States and Mexico,” said Anne Pasternak, Shelby White and Leon Levy Director of the Brooklyn Museum.
Catherine Morris, Sackler Senior Curator of the Brooklyn Museum, added: “Under-recognized in her lifetime, Kahlo has become a feminist icon over the past four decades.”
Two weeks after the sweeping Brooklyn exhibition, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), will present eight carefully curated paintings that showcase the artist’s enduring fascination with Mexican folk art, or Arte Popular, such as decorated ceramics, embroidered textiles, children’s toys, and devotional ex-voto paintings.
“Frida Kahlo and Arte Popular,” which is backed by the Darwin Cordoba Fund for Latin American Art, opens Feb. 27, and features eight Kahlo paintings alongside some 40 examples of arte popular, as well as photographs and key illustrated publications from the period. The show is on view until June 16, including interpretation in English and Spanish.
“While many exhibitions focus on the artist’s biography and interpret her paintings as direct illustrations of life events, our exhibition brings fresh attention to Kahlo as an ever-evolving and ambitious painter, who actively responded to arte popular. It also opens broader discussions about the influences of anonymous folk artists on famed modern painters,” said Layla Bermeo, the MFA’s Kristin and Roger Servison Assistant Curator of American Paintings.
Clearly, Kahlo maintains widespread appeal across a large swath of demographics. Last year, Google Arts & Culture launched an online retrospective “Faces of Frida,” featuring 800 items from 33 museums in seven different countries.
Kahlo set a new record for highest price paid for a Latin American artwork at auction in 2016, when “Dos Desnudos en el Bosque (La Tierra Misma)” (1939) fetched $8 million at Christie’s New York, bringing in $5,000 above the painting’s low estimate during a lackluster week of sales.
But two years later, a painting by Rivera sold at Christie’s in New York for a record $9.76 million, besting his ex-wife. The odd couple married twice, divorcing briefly, during a distressful relationship that played out like a bohemian telenovela.