Hungarian audiences will see the paintings of the famous Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-1953) for the first time in Budapest from 6 July – 4 November in the Hungarian National Gallery. The Museo Dolores Olmedo of Mexico City, which has some of Kahlo’s finest works in its collection, has generously loaned many of her outstanding works for this exhibition. Adriána Lantos, the exhibition’s curator revealed: “The Budapest exhibition is based on eminent works from this collection, but it will be complemented by works from other Mexican private collections”.

The exhibit contains 33 works, among them paintings, drawing, graphics, prints and photographs. The portrait of Kahlo taken by the Hungarian-born New York-based photographer Nickolas Muray, who carried on a ten-year affair with the artist after they met in New York, is considered one of the best of her. The exhibit will feature – in addition to Kahlo’s trademark self-portraits – Itzcuintli Dog with Me and Self-Portrait with Monkey, as well as The Broken Column from 1944, which depicts pain and suffering.

The curator mentioned that the exhibit’s material has been divided into five sections. The first reveals Kahlo’s evolution as a painter and features her self-portraits. In the second the poetry of pain is depicted in the images, while the third section introduces works derived from Mexican traditions. The fourth contains fantasy images and works that depict the power of lush Mexican nature. Lastly, the fifth section is devoted to Kahlo’s tempestuous and passionate marriage to Diego Rivera and to her lovers – both men and women – who are expressed through paintings. The exhibit will also feature an installation on Kahlo’s archaeological collection of pre-Columbian art.

Kahlo was a beautiful, temperamental and intelligent woman with a good sense of humour. What appears in her works is her will to live, enthralling creativity, her passionate marriage to Diego Rivera, and vibrant Mexico, which allows us a glimpse into the artist’s suggestive inner world filled with bodily and spiritual torment. It is no accident that she is the best-known Mexican painter in the world, for her life was depicted in the 2002 film Frida directed by Julie Taymor, which starred Salma Hayek, who was nominated for an Oscar for her performance. 

Curator Adriána Lantos also spoke in regards to Kahlo’s life, adding that her Hungarian origins are simply the stuff of legend. German researchers determined that her father was a German named Wilhelm, who was born in Germany and emigrated to Mexico at the age of 19, where he adopted the name Guillermo. Kahlo’s father was a photographer who was commissioned by the government to take architectural photos, and he married a Mestizo woman named Matilde with whom he had three daughters in addition to Frida. Originally intending to be a doctor, Kahlo was involved in a bus accident that left her spine and pelvis injured, along with a broken leg. As a result, she would have to wear a plaster corset for the rest of her life and underwent 30 operations. Following the accident, Kahlo received a canopy bed with a mirror above her head and began painting during this painful time. Miraculously, she improved considerably and met the famous painter Diego Rivera, whom she soon married. The elephant and dove found each other, her parents said of the large and frog-faced man and the small, fragile woman. Rivera recognised Kahlo’s talent and convinced her to continue her work.

Favourites of Mexican left-wing circles, the pair led a rich social life and provided shelter between 1936-1938 to Leon Trotsky and his wife after they fled the Soviet Union. Until her death, she and Rivera lived in La Casa Azul in Coyoacán, on the outskirts of Mexico City, in the house where she was born. This single-story U-shaped house is painted blue to keep evil spirits at bay, while the tropical garden was developed by Kahlo and is her considered part of her oeuvre. She also had two Mexican hairless dogs. Pre-Columbian statuettes have been placed in the small recesses in the interior walls, and a pink pyramid rises in one corner of the garden, with Aztec figurines on its steps. Since 1958 La Casa Azul has functioned as the Frida Kahlo Museum.

Kahlo’s passionate marriage to Rivera ended in divorce in 1939, since he began an affair with her sister Cristina. After this Kahlo pursued an unrestrained life, having affairs with women such as the dancer Josephine Baker, or with men such as even Leon Trotsky. After a year, Kahlo and Rivera remarried in 1940, but from that point forward Kahlo’s love for her husband was only like that for a child. Her frail physical condition worsened and from 1950 onwards she was confined to a wheelchair, with her right leg needing to be amputated in 1953. Nonetheless, she carried on with the motto “Have the courage to live because anyone can die”. For the opening of her first Mexican exhibition, Kahlo was transported in her bed wearing a beautiful Tehuana dress with a floral headpiece and rustic jewellery. Following much agony, she passed away in the summer of 1954 at the age of 47 from a pulmonary embolism, but according to her diary, suicide cannot be ruled out either. The pre-Columbian ceramic urn that guards her ashes rests in La Casa Azul.

Kahlo’s painting style cannot be said to belong to any movement, because, as she emphasised, what she wanted to give through her work was herself. In her paintings, she honestly, openly and bravely depicted herself, the suffering woman. Breton, the father of French surrealism, organised an exhibition in Paris for her, and she was the first Mexican painter to have a work purchased by the Louvre. Kahlo’s work was also featured in New York and twice in Mexico together with other surrealists. Her work was perhaps most significantly inspired by pre-Columbian art. Native American artwork flourished from 2000 BC to the era of European colonisation in the 16^th century. Frida’s personal archaeological collection is also from this era, and she loved to wear traditional dress from the Tehuana of Southern Mexico.

A Hungarian-English catalogue with pictures of the collection was produced for the occasion of Frida Kahlo’s first exhibition in Budapest, and it includes scholarly articles by the Museo Dolores Olmedo, an introduction by the Hungarian curator Adriána Lantos, a biography of Kahlo, and a bibliography of works about her. Furthermore, lectures will be held in regards to Kahlo’s impact on world art, on visualisation, fashion and jewellery. In addition to this catalogue, the Gallery’s gift shop will also contain a variety of Frida Kahlo-related objects.

Photo: Hungarian National Gallery