Heart of Frida Museum, San Miguel de Allende
Jesus # 36, San Miguel de Allende
The exhibit displays letters and notes, handwritten by Frida Kahlo, to herself. These letters are very revealing. They describe the last 4 years of her magnificent and often tragic life. They mainly describe her rocky relationship with Diego Rivera, her communist politics and her pain and suffering.
As a child Frida contracted polio. It left her right leg smaller. She also was born with Spina Bifida, which affected her leg and spinal development.
On September 17, 1925, Frida was riding in a bus, when a trolley car crashed into it. Frida broke her spine, pelvis, collarbone, ribs, and eleven fractures in her right leg and a crushed and dislocated right foot and a dislocated shoulder. She also had a punctured uterus and intestines from a handrail that pierced her.
Frida was able to walk again but she had over 35 operations on her back, right leg and foot. She eventually had to have her right leg amputated below her knee, due to gangrene.
Frida died of a pulmonary embolism but many suspect an overdose. She had been very ill with pneumonia and it left her very weak. An autopsy was not done.
Frida’s accident left her in a body cast and she began to paint, to occupy her time. Fifty-five of her paintings were self portraits, often expressing her pain. The rest were portraits of family and friends and still life. Frida used dramatic colors and symbols found in Mexican folk art.
Frida was the first 20th century Mexican artist ever to have her work purchased by a famous art museum. In 1939 the Louvre bought her painting entitled, “The Frame.â€
In 1929 she married Diego Rivera. She had asked Diego Rivera for advice on painting. He immediately recognized her talent and then fell in love her. Their relationship was turbulent. Frida and Diego both had affairs and both had hot tempers. Frida had affairs with women as well as men. Her most famous lover was Leon Trotsky. The men made Diego very jealous, the women he could tolerate. Diego had an affair with Frida’s younger sister, Cristina. The couple divorced but was remarried in 1940. The second time was a rocky as the first.
Casa Azul was where she lived and worked in Mexico City. It now is a museum that has artifacts from her life.
The “Heart of Frida Collection†includes 37 notes that were found in a laquered box with the letters F K on the outer lid and Coyoacan Frida Kahlo 1950, hand painted on the inner lid.
The notes consist of:
Eight handwritten letters, addressed to herself at Coyoacan, Casa Azul, her house outside Mexico City, discussing her most intimate thoughts about herself and Diego Rivera.
Twenty-seven notes written by Frida on scratch paper. They detail her relationship with Diego Rivera, her leftist politics, and her descriptions of her pain and suffering. These were written between 1950 and 1954.
Two postcards, written by Frida but never mailed while she was in Paris. One of them was addressed to her first love Alejandro Gomez Arias, about her husband Diego Rivera.
Six Drawings, of which four are on the back of losing lottery tickets and two signed drawings on the back of brown paper, one is a self portrait of herself as a butterfly.
To learn more about this exhibit go to http://www.frida2007.com/frida-kahlo.html
