Kahlo & Rivera

Self-portrait with a hat, 1907. Diego Rivera. Dolores Olmedo Museum. Rivera was in Europe then, in Madrid.

Frida Kahlo with a motorbike, Mexico city, c.2019. Kahlo’s image is everywhere. This is a rather Op-Art version I suspect she would have liked.

Diego Rivera’s workshop and house in San Angel, Mexico city. Rivera lived there from 1934 till the day he died in 1957. The house was designed by Juan O’Gorman, a top Mexican architect of the time. There are 3 major places to see Diego Rivera’s and Frida Kahlo’s work: the Dolores Olmedo Museum (See above), Diego’s house in San Angel and Frida’s house in Coyoacán. The latter is a wonderful house and museum, we haven’t visited in a long while: it is packed. Was. Before.

Two unidentified travellers in Diego’s workshop. San Angel. Mexico city.

Mother and child by Guillermo Toussaint. c.1930-1940. Rivera’s house. The 30’s and 40’s were a period of intense revival of the Mexicans’ pre-Columbian roots. Rivera was a big collector of prehistoric artefacts; many artists, like Toussaint, retook pre-Columbian influences.

Frida Kahlo, “The girl Virginia”, 1929. Dolores Olmedo museum. I like the work on the lace on Virginia’s sleeves.

Pre-Columbian pottery behind Diego’s desk. “Ancient” desks always surprise me now with their simplicity. No computers, no screens. Nothing electric. No cables. No multiple plugs. I have more than a dozen plugs in my library. Never enough. Another source of wonder: the objects of my youth are now in museums. My mother had a typewriter very much like this one.

Kahlo’s photograph. Diego Rivera’s house. On previous visits, it seems to me there were more of Frida’s belongings in Rivera’s house. I hear all were moved to the Blue House in Coyoacán.

Three women, by Juan Leonardo Cordero. c. 1935-40. Diego’s house. It is always interesting to discover the art major artists kept in their house.

Diego and Frida. Dolores Olmedo museum. Why is the Diego mannequin the only one to have a painter’s palette? Didn’t Kahlo paint? Or is that a curator’s gender bias?

Rivera’s workshop. Love the phonograph. Playing 78 rpm records. Beethoven’s 9th needed a suitcase to carry all the records.

Dolores del Río (1905-1983), centre, with her portraits, many if not all by Diego Rivera. The portrait top left is now on an easel, in Diego’s workshop. I featured that portrait in a previous post. Dolores del Río was one of the major actresses of the Mexican golden age of Cinema.

The mask (of madness), Frida Kahlo, 1945. She wore it sometimes. Hence the holes in the painting.

El picador, the chopper, Diego Rivera, 1909. Painted during Rivera’s stay in Europe. The “picador” is an essential part of the Spanish “corrida”, riding a horse, he repeatedly attacks the bull with a spear to tire him away before the “matador” comes in. “Corridas” are ghastly affairs really.

To be continued…