Frida Kahlo Art Garden Life

Frida in Tehuana dress. Photo by Nikolas Murray.

Frida Kahlo’s life and art cannot be summed up in a single exhibition – but her love of Mexican culture and its natural features, the pre-Columbian world, the interconnectedness of all life is demonstrated in a three-part display —Frida Kahlo Art.Garden.Life –in several locations at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) in the Bronx, which is on view through November 1. (Don’t miss the Frida Kahlo Photo Gallery on our web site)

Now the Museo Frida Kahlo in Coyoácan, a suburb of Mexico City, the Casa Azul (the blue building) was expanded with a studio and bridge connecting the two by Diego Rivera to give Frida more space for her work. Note the fence of cactus around the property!

There’s a modest exhibition of 12 paintings, including the iconic Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, from The University of Texas at Austin; extensive photographic panel displays that provide more detail on her beloved Casa Azul in Coyoacan, her lifelong home; and an elaborate botanical display that reimagines – and interprets — her patio and garden at Casa Azul where she lived with Diego Rivera from their marriage in 1929 until her death in 1954.

One of the signature works in the NYBG exhibition, Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, is also used as the show’s logo. Normally, the hummingbird is considered a love charm, but here the blackened bird appears to be dead. (Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin. © 2014 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust.)

Diego and Frida with one of their dogs

Kahlo’s beauty, her energy, and her lifelong suffering — childhood polio, a horrific streetcar accident as a teenager, multiple surgeries, and a philandering artist-husband Diego Rivera –were translated into art that focuses primarily on herself, her inability to have children, and intense loneliness.

Roots (The Pedregal, 1943) While not in the exhibition, this small work on tin (privately owned) is a strong example of how Frida saw herself as part of the interconnectedness of life. Here her body opens into roots and the plants spread into the desert-like barancas terrain. (© 2015 Banco de México. Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust/Artist Rights Society/NYC. All rights reserved.)

These pieces were often worked on small tin panels (like ex voto paintings) and derived from Mexican popular art and retablos. In her art, Frida “extends her being into the world” with self-portraits, according to biographer Hayden Herrera, who has written extensively about the artist. She is both grounded in the earth – with roots and tendrils– and transcendent, with butterflies coming out of her hair (see the self-portrait above).

Installation in the NYBG Conservatory recreates the pyramid in Casa Azul’s garden, with a selection of native Mexican plantings.

The NYBG show reimagines the beauty of Casa Azul and its gardens – now forever preserved in Mexico City as the Frida Kahlo Museum—with native flowering plants, tropical flowers, and cacti as well as special features, such as recreation of the Aztec-style pyramid that stands in the Casa Azul Garden, a tiled splashing water fountain with frogs, and interior vignette from her studio, with pots of paint and brushes at the ready.

A reimagine corner from Frida's studio features her desk, brushes and paint pots.

A reimagined corner from Frida’s studio features her desk, brushes and paint pots.

Pots of marigolds in the NYBG installation. Grown since the pre-Hispanic era, marigolds are an important aspect of the annual Dia de los Muertos celebrations, where they are scattered across graves in Mexico.

The Frida cult erupted long after her death in 1954 – with merchandise that ranges from refrigerator magnets to a US postage stamp – but has more importantly inspired a new generation of Mexican-American women with confidence to pursue their art and admiration for the elaborate native Tehuana style that she wore.

Museo Frida Kahlo with exterior shots of the Casa Azul.

The NYBG has rightly focused on the place in Frida Kahlo’s world – the Casa Azul and its gardens – that gave the artist respite from the complex relationships and suffering that gave rise to her work. See this show and you’re bound to want to know more (see below) about the artist and her life.