Frida Kahlo: Beyond the Myth
2025: My Favorite Exhibitions
From a stone coaster of Frida Kahlo to the many images and artworks taped on my studio walls and mirrors, Kahlo’s energy has surrounded me for the last decade. It wasn’t until this show that I realized how resistant I was to studying this iconic artist. I am definitely the type to steer clear of any extremely popular artist. But I always end up learning that the most famous artists in the world (Kahlo, Basquiat, Warhol) are known worldwide for a reason. The hype is deserved.
Early in 2025, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts’ exhibition, Frida Kahlo: Beyond the Myth, pulled back the curtain and revealed the fullness of Kahlo’s life. From childhood to death, the VMFA mixed photographs of Kahlo with her paintings and drawings, showing her through the eyes of her father, friends, lovers, and herself.
The highlight of the show was the curation and the layout. Each room featured a different period of Kahlo’s life, and the walls were each painted in a vibrant color that evoked the spirit of Mexico. The gallery walls had large glassless windows that peeked into the next gallery, creating this effortless flow between spaces. (I’d vote the curation and layout as #1 on my list of favorite shows for 2025)
Frida Kahlo Beyond the Myth laid bare a more vulnerable side of Kahlo that often goes overlooked. From her many affairs, unstable marriage to painter Diego Rivera, and the battleground that was her body, that woman was a survivor.
This was my first time experiencing multiple Frida Kahlos together, and it is easy to declare that Frida Kahlo is one of the greatest artists of all time. She deserves all the hype, praise, and respect. I visited this exhibition twice, once during the opening weekend and again during the closing weekend, and I have never seen so many people at a museum exhibition in my life. It was packed out. So much so, the VMFA actually extended it!
Kahlo is remembered as a fearless, daring woman with undeniable talent. Through her work, she created a myth of herself, but behind it all, she was a woman who was at the mercy of her body and, oftentimes, her husband. But through and through, Frida prevailed and has left an unquestionable, unmistakable legacy about a woman who knew herself and wasn’t afraid to live in her power. A bomb with a ribbon tied around it, Kahlo was that girl, still that girl, and will always be that girl.
Frida Kahlo Beyond the Myth takes the #3 spot for my favorite shows of 2025.
Shout out to the mythical, the magical, the mysterious, Frida Kahlo.
You can see all the works and words included in this exhibition here.
Missed my #1 and #2 shows of 2025? You can see #1 here and #2 here.
I knew Frida’s father was a photographer, but it wasn’t until this show that I realized the connection between her father’s photography and her self-portraits. I had to remind myself that in the early 20th century, cameras were rare. Kahlo knew how to pose for herself because she had been posing since childhood. When I saw these images of her in her father’s 3-piece suit, I laughed. From the look in her eyes, I see a young woman who knows her power and is not afraid to show it. I also love how her father encouraged her and supported her to be herself, even when it was frowned upon for young “ladies” to be that…themselves.
For the past four years, I have had a postcard of Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress on my bedroom mirror. I was starstruck seeing it in person against this yellow-orange wall, which I thought brought out the colors of this painting even more.
This is known as Frida’s first self-portrait. While recovering from the tragic bus accident that nearly killed her, Kahlo painted this for her high school boyfriend, Alejandro Gómez Arias (to the right). Kahlo said she didn’t want him to forget her while she was recovering, so she gifted him this painting.
What is so captivating about Kahlo is how she commanded the space she occupied in her work and in photographs. Here I see a striking woman who knows herself and gives an elegant, seductive, and playful energy in her pose and stare. Behind her is a dark sky and several waves. I thought, just like the ocean, she holds the power to move tides. She doesn’t just occupy space, she moves it.
This self-portrait to me says a lot about how she saw herself in a time when she was literally fighting for her life and relearning her broken body.
On the Right:
Portrait of Alejandro Gomez Arias is of Kahlo’s first boyfriend. Arias was on the bus during that 1925 accident, and it is because of him that Kahlo survived. The doctors on site were ready to pronounce her dead, but he convinced them to work on her. It is said that Kahlo held onto this portrait for over 24 years.
These are two of my favorite pictures of Kahlo in the exhibition. On the left, Kahlo is pictured during the first year of her and Diego Rivera’s marriage. Smoking a cigarette in a white dress, she gives the camera a mysterious gaze, like she’s holding something back. Is she sad? Tired? Questioning her marriage?
I have studied Kahlo and Rivera’s relationship in depth for a few years now. I will always be fascinated by Kahlo’s choice to stay with Rivera, despite his infidelities (one affair with her younger sister), and the two times he tried to divorce her for other women. But through her words and art, she has made it clear that no one will ever understand, not even Rivera.
I learned that because of Rivera, Frida’s legacy was cemented. He spent the rest of his life (he died 3 years after her) turning Casa Azul (her childhood and adult home) into a museum dedicated to her life and work.
During the exhibition, I thought about the security and opportunities he offered her. Rivera had money and was able to provide for Kahlo. He bought Casa Azul for her when her parents died. She didn’t have to work and was able to focus on her art. He took care of her while she was dying and was there for her, and paid for the multiple surgeries she underwent throughout her life.
And then I thought, what would have happened if Kahlo (or any woman in that time) didn’t have to depend on a man for survival? What would she have been able to accomplish on her own? Would the pain she went through in this marriage have been worth it? Rivera pushed her to keep painting, and Kahlo said that he was her only teacher. So I guess it was worth it?
This is one of my favorite, favorite pieces by Kahlo. She made this for her and Rivera’s 15th anniversary. She custom-designed this frame around her painting of a smiling Rivera conjoined with a serious Kahlo. (The irony). The description mentions that in 1944, the two “had separated and reconciled several times, including a divorce in 1939 and remarriage the following year”.
What did he think when he saw this? Upon reading this, I thought about the studies that showed that the happiest men in the world are married and the unhappiest women in the world…are married (lol).
Kahlo started painting this after Rivera’s mural was destroyed at the Rockefeller Center because he included a portrait of Russia’s first communist leader, Vladimir Lenin. The wall label perfectly describes this piece, saying,
“Angry about the anti-communist debate, she used this urban landscape to highlight the United States’ hypocrisies. American society prided itself on social advancement but ignored the dire conditions of unemployed people, as implied in the collaged photos along the bottom of the work. Kahlo emphasized the nonsensical nature of social norms in the US by juxtaposing elements from high and low culture….Kahlo’s Tehuana dress, suspended in the central foreground between pillars serving as a pedestal for a toilet and a trophy. suggests her yearning to return to Mexico.”
In The Suicide of Dorthy Hale we see a woman falling to her death from a skyscraper. Kahlo was commissioned by writer and politician Claire Boothe Luce to paint a “recuerdo (a portrait of remembrance)” for the actress Dorthy Hale, who jumped out of a 16th-story window in 1938. And what did Kahlo do? She chose to portray Hale’s final act.
It is said that Luce was so appalled by this painting that “several friends had to convince her not to destroy it”.
(She’s kind of funny for this, am I right?)
Nickolas Muray, Muray Home Movie, 1941
This video was shot by Nickolas Muray in 1941 at Casa Azul in Mexico City. I see a soft version of Kahlo. A moment where we can witness her infinite love for Rivera.
The only plot twist in this picture…. Muray, the person who shot this, was Kahlo’s lover for a decade, including the year 1941. So it makes me wonder, what was she thinking in this film? And how does that change how I view her in this moment? It is known that Rivera had several affairs during this marriage, but what about Kahlo’s? The way she looks at Rivera and then Muray and then back at Rivera. I see the conflicting looks in her eyes, and I just wonder, what was their marriage really like?
I also didn’t know she used real flowers in her hair. This was great to see.
This is Nickolas.
Another favorite photo of Kahlo. I love her rings, the flowers in her hair, and a vulnerable side of her that is often hidden. This is 10 years before her death, and during the time period when her body was beginning to break down quickly.
The paintings I mostly see by Kahlo are ones she did of her younger self. Seeing portraits like this is where the myth begins to dissolve, and we see what Kahlo referred to as “the beginning of the end.” In Self-Portrait with Loose Hair, at 40, Kahlo appears exhausted. Stripped of jewelry and flowers in her hair, instead of her done-up dos, her hair is left out, uncombed, and a bit frizzy. She stares at us with drained, grief-ridden eyes. The year prior, Kahlo had an unsuccessful spinal surgery, and before that, she was bedridden with pain that doctors said they could no longer manage. She spent the last decade in hospitals, corsets, and beds.
Kahlo died at the age of 47. The last words in her diary were:
“I hope the leaving is joyful —and I hope to never return.”
What to Watch:
Knowing all that I know about Kahlo, I still stand behind this film. Salma Hayek really did that.
What to Read:
The VMFA didn’t have a catalogue for this exhibition. I wish they did. I have read “Frida Kahlo At Home” at the library last summer. Was so into the book, I ended up missing my pilates class that day. I was recently gifted it for my birthday and highly recommend getting it while you still can!
Frida Kahlo, July 6, 1907 - July 13, 1954
Fantastic write up! I visited Casa Azul but admittedly also avoid studying the super popular artists. I appreciate your time sharing this exhibit with such attention and detail 🙌🏾
A wonderful read! Thank you for sharing! I always miss tickets to Casa Azul when in CDMX! I’ll definitely visit next time to learn more about her.