Frida Kahlo: Her Photos

When Frida Kahlo dies, Diego Rivera, Frida's husband, ex-husband and widower, asks the poet Carlos Pellicer to turn the Casa Azul into a museum so that the people of Mexico can visit it and admire the artist's work. Pellicer selected Frida's paintings that were in the house, as well as some drawings, photos, books and ceramics, preserving the spaces as the couple had adapted them to live and work. The rest of the objects, clothes, documents, drawings, letters and more than six thousand photographs that Frida collected throughout her life, were kept in the bathrooms converted into cellars. This formidable collection was hidden for more than half a century. A few years ago they decided to open the cellars, cabinets and trunks that protected it. The set of photographic images is a treasure that reveals the tastes and interests of the famous couple, not only in what the images tell but also in the annotations in the margin, and allows speculation about their phobias and attractions, it is even possible to document their family origins. Photography was always present for Frida, her father Guillermo Kahlo was one of the great photographers of the early 20th century in Mexico, of whom she kept some images of colonial architecture and a good number of self-portraits. In Frida's collection there is a list of great photographers: Man Ray, Brassaï, Martin Munkacsi, Pierre Verger, George Hurrel, Tina Modotti, Edward Weston, Manuel and Lola Álvarez Bravo, Gisèle Freund and many others, including Frida Kahlo herself. . It is probable that she took several of the photos in the collection, although we are sure of her authorship only in a few that were closed in 1929.